Happening next

His autumn-winter 2008-09 collection,“The Body Farm”,showcased at the Lakme Fashion Week last year was a sensation. Datta’s clothes in stark colours were inspired by the necropolis,the mummies and embalming techniques. “I grew up in the Middle East and there was so much bling all around that it cured me of it forever. When I began working,that was the only thing I was certain about: no bling,” he says.

Is it a dress,a bag,a jacket? In Ahmedabad,36-year-old Anuj Sharma has taken very seriously his lessons at the National Institute of Design. “Fashion should be about simplicity. It’s difficult not to incorporate Indian crafts if you are in the country,but it should not become a clutter,” he says. His collections,from “Eyelet it Be” (Fall 2008) to his more recent “Button Masala” (Spring 2010),all work on the principles of multi-functionality. If in the former,he used eyelets to manipulate the silhouettes,in the latter he used buttons and button holes to structure the drapes,allowing the same garment to be worn in a number of ways — as a dress,a gown,a jacket. One can even button it into a bag or a cushion cover. “Fashion has to be about concepts. People pay for value additions,and you have to innovate,” he says.

Reserve Drive: Mumbai-based Rahul Mishra,who began the concept of reversible clothes with his debut collection in 2005,has now developed the theme further,taking new fabrics each year and innovating on silhouettes and texturing to make the look different. “Sustaining an idea is difficult. You need to do something new and try not to fall into a repetitive trap,” says the 29-year-old,talking of the initial years of his career when he was depressed by the saturated market and when Albert Morris of Browns,London,pepped him up. “He told me how YSL had no takers initially since his work was out of the ordinary. One needs to just hang in there,” he says. Mishra is glad he did. His label has seen a rapid expansion and his reversible clothes have incorporated the whole gamut of indigenous fabrics,from Benarasi to Bhagalpuri fabrics,from Kerala handloom to Maheshwari,from Oriya ikkat to Bhuj cotton,and his sales have soared. “I have been invited to the Paris Fashion Week after Didier Grumbach (of the French Fashion Federation) saw my show at Delhi. It pays to hang in there,” he says. Clearly.