Designs On India

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                                 ________________SUJATA ASSOMULL

This week will clearly belong to India’s fashion fraternity. With the country’s first ever fashion week round the corner, all the participating designers are busy adding their finishing touches on their collections — one would expect at least.
But the Lakme India Fashion Week (LIFW) has also exposed many problems that the industry is fraught with. While many of the designers do feel that the Fashion Week is proof that the Indian fashion industry has finally arrived, there are still some who have yet to return from their temperamental trips.

I started this column by calling up five designers who I had been told were taking part in LIFW about a month ago. The idea was to try and get a feel of the trends that would come out of LIFW. Of the five I rang up, only two (Tarun Tahiliani and Monisha Jaisingh) knew what their collection was going to be like. And this was three weeks before the event is meant to taken place. One designer had decided to drop out, the other said he would call back later as he did not have a real fix on what he was doing yet. (And of course he never called back, but then fashion designers rarely do.) As for the fifth he said, ‘‘I am not sure if I going to be doing a pret a porter (ready to wear) line or couture line as yet!’’ Obviously that designer had not realised that the whole point of LIFW was to show the best of India’s pret!

And talking of the best of Indian design, though 33 designers are showing during this week, one can’t help wonder why designers like Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla, Shahab Durazi, and Krishna Mehta are not part of the event. Surely these Mumbai-based designers are stalwarts of the industry, and it seems odd that these designers would opt not to be part of India’s first ever fashion week.

Anyway so then I tried to find out which international buyers and media would be coming. What is the point of holding a fashion week unless there is some international exposure? Here there is a piece of good news, Britain’s Channel Four is coming to make a documentary. But other than that no other information was available, merely three weeks before the event was due to take place.

But then getting information has been a problem all through out the run-up to the event. Every time you try to get in touch with a designer, the event organiser or even the public relations agency, the response you get is: ‘We do not have that information yet.’ Which makes it very hard for any journalist to give LIFW any proper pre-event coverage. Now, before all the designers get angry (fashion designers have a hard time taking any criticism) I am not denying that the LIFW is a great idea, and that every first event has a few teething problems.

The fact that 33 designers managed to come together is quite something. And with supermodel Jodie Kidd (the present face of Chanel) walking the ramp, international media interest is guaranteed.

Plus the timing is perfect as India is still hot abroad, the Indian look is still over New York’s Fifth Avenue and London’s Bond Street. And we can only hope that LIFW does really give Indian designers the recognition they deserve. By the way here is the information I did manage to get: Both Tarun and Monisha are predicting lots of colour at the LIFW. Monisha is making simple shift dresses in black, beige, blue, purple, red and lilac. Tarun’s collection will include a lot of deep flame reds and emerald greens.

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