A Stylish Debut

The smile and excitement are natural. Kumar’s creation,along with a few others by his batchmates,will be showcased at the forthcoming Lakme Fashion Week Winter/Festive 2011 to be held in Mumbai between August 17-21.

At the event,their designs will be displayed alongside the creations of A-listers such as Manish Malhotra,Sabyasachi Mukherjee,Neeta Lulla,Wendell Rodricks,JJ Vallaya,Rina Dhaka,Anita Dongre and Pria Kataaria Puri. A spot in the preview area,which is called ‘The Source’,where designers put up their stalls,is reserved for them.

“The dress that goes to Mumbai is from one of my collections,called ‘Denim Therapy’,where I have sourced used denim,recycled and dyed it to create new silhouettes,” says Kumar. Although he wishes to be a part of all the action himself,at the moment he’s content that his outfit has reserved a spot for itself in the world of the designer best. “I hope to get some good feedback,” he quips.

“The aim behind taking their creations to LFW,” says INIFD’s corporate director Ritu Kochhar,“is to encourage these young students and help them get a foothold in the industry.”

“The students have worked hard throughout the year to come up with some out-of-the-box ideas and themes. This is their chance as well as ours to showcase the best in design,” she adds.

Ensemble from Rajnish Tripathi’s ‘Fashion at GT Road’ collection has also been selected for LFW. For this collection,the student-designer mapped the entire Grand Trunk Road—starting from Amritsar and going through Jalandhar,Varanasi,Agra to finish at Kolkata.

Also making an impression with her work is Sukhdeep Kaur,a B.Sc final-year student of fashion design. Kaur’s collection titled ‘Unlock your memories’ uses keys as a prominent motif.

“For me,the key is a way to unlock my memories,” she explains her logic. Using the tie-n-dye technique,this young designer has painstakingly printed key designs on silk that appear on the borders of a sari.

“I had to hand-stitch each key and that took a while,” she says,hoping to catch the attention of those visiting LFW. “The fashion week is an event where all of us aspire to showcase our collections someday. This time only one of my outfits will make it to the stall,but it’s a good start nevertheless,” she adds.

As many as 120 outfits by INIFD students will be showcased at ‘The Source’ but there’s also one lucky student whose entire collection would be showcased at a special section that has been introduced this year at LFW. “One of our students from Delhi,Aditya Khandelwal,will get to showcase his work at a section called the Talent Box at LFW. This is a new initiative at LFW,in line with international fashion weeks,” says Kochhar.

Seems the students have finally cracked ‘The Source’ code!