Heads up,backs straightened

We have been looking for a new Sabyasachi for the last seven years (he debuted only eight years ago) and we’ve found not one but several.

Each of the designers I’m about to mention is in the business for five years or less,but you could never tell by their strong styles,clever signatures,professionalism and,yes,even fame.

Rakesh Agarvwal,once an intern with Tarun Tahiliani,is as ambitious as they come. He likens himself to Tom Ford and says he’d rather be a company,not an individual name. In five quick years since his debut,he is now presenting himself as a couturier to be likened with Pallavi Jaikishen and Abu-Sandeep.

Anand Bhushan is someone I only know and adore through his work (and whose clothes I’m yet to invest in). This Delhi-based NID graduate has surface techniques that show off luxury as if it were available at a supermarket near you.

Aneeth Arora and Chinar Farooqi have the strongest aesthetic I’ve seen since that Bengali butterball’s debut eight years ago. They make terrific global clothes using a local language: indigenous skills and textile traditions inspired by rural and remote areas of India. They could be called new-age revivalists,but they are actually artists and also have a degree in Fine Arts from Baroda’s prestigious Sayajirao University to prove it.

Well earned degrees from reputed institutes is something all young designers have to their advantage. The older lot struggled with the staidness of assorted NIFTs and NIDs,the newer designers are doing that too,but soon enough hopping between Parsons,New York,Central St Martin’s,London,and institutes in Milan. Swapnil Shinde,a Mumbai lad whose erstwhile claim to fame was participating in the reality show Lakme Fashion House,headed for a degree in styling to Milan after his NIFT stint. He now makes dresses for Priyanka Chopra,among other big-ticket actresses. Anuj Sharma of Rajasthan has shown in Japan already and is hugely promoted by the epically chic Priya Kishore and her boutique Bombay Electric.

Newer designers have also brought a new business ethic into fashion. Ahmedabad boy Rahul Mishra has bagged himself a garment house as an investor; he now looks after only the creative in his business while the marketing and logistics are managed as corporates are meant to be. Even Tahiliani has been looking for a competent CEO for too long,and Manish Arora is lucky to have found a business head in his friend Deepak Bhagwani.

There’s been another paradigm shift: stores have lost control. As recently as a decade ago,if you stocked with Ensemble,you could not have your clothes hanging at Mélange. But now a designer will sell in every big store he can find in any city. Consignment orders are soon becoming a thing of the past; most designers prefer their collection to be bought by the store.Younger stores encourage newer designers too,like Mumbai’s Zoya,so much so that even the grand old lady of stores,Ensemble,has begun to focus on younger names to keep themselves fresh and on the ball.

The new lot knows it isn’t running a mom-and-pop joint. Gaurav Gupta’s office has my measurements ever since I first ordered from him three years ago. Each order is acknowledged with a couriered letter,each well-packaged delivery accompanied with an invoice and further,each payment receives a receipt.

On the other hand,it’s been five years and I’m still waiting for a green pea coat I ordered from Sabya and a printed safari tunic from Anamika Khanna to arrive.

(namratanow@gmail.com)