Runway Success

innovation and emotion,bring on the eyeballs,I say.

The 50-year-old designer saved the day for the

fashion show.

In the lobby of the main show area at Pragati Maidan in Delhi,where the biannual Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week takes place,dress-maker and caricaturist Nitin Bal Chauhan doodled beautifully an image of a designer with a faceless showstopper. Manish Malhotra,the king of behind-the-seams Bollywood,decided to forego the star appeal in his shows and not have an actor on his runway. The best our paparazzi could get on the front row is Sunanda Pushkar. Yes,this is a year where only clothes are allowed to talk the talk.

The idea of a fashion show is to generate interest and excite creative thought. If you are going to do a strictly commercial show,shouldn’t taking up a stall suffice? Manish Arora’s in-store line is a collection of bits and pieces from his phantasmagoric runway shows. A completely outré warrior princess look is stripped in six different ideas for as many dresses. I’m sure Gayatri Khanna’s collection will be a sell-out. But there’s nothing exciting to write about party frocks that could be bought from Bangkok or Hill Road for a fraction.

Most fashion shows at Wills are about self-indulgence,where all the designer

tells you is ‘I love my collection and so should you’.

Why else must a 20-minute show go on for 35? A solo showcase must present 30-35 looks. But some designers get away with as many as 60,taking both the runway and the guests’ time for granted. Gaurav Gupta sent out an idea that was romantic and subversive at the same time in just 29 looks.

Editing has been the biggest shortfall this fashion week. Less than a handful of designers have known how many looks to send out and in what order. Designers are emotionally entangled with their creations and can never edit,a stylist must be employed as is mandatory at the Lakme Fashion Week (thank them for the wonderful Mohan Neelakantan and Gautam Kalra). A stylist also dresses up a commercial line.

A designer must also be judicious in sitting out one season and only present a stall. Design veterans Abraham & Thakore regularly take on a stall at fashion weeks. This year,during their second showcase at a fashion week in a 20-year career,they dropped jaws with their menswear-inspired womenswear.

Zubair Kirmani makes beautifully constructed clothes,but not a fabulous fashion show. All he needs is a good PR and a decent Facebook account. Aneeth Arora is very commercial and layers far too much; but each season her collection screams déjà vu. Anshu and Jason’s Small Shop is poetic and whimsical,but can they please try anything else besides pink Bhagalpuri silk. Atsu was very polished and it’s nice to see an Indian designer not hung up about being Indian.

There are few names that lend credibility to an event. You can’t have a real fashion week if Tarun Tahiliani isn’t showing. His is unarguably the biggest crowd-puller of the week. “One season he’ll bore you to death with his staples,and the next season he’ll bring on the magic with something so precious and path-breaking you want to cry,” says the fashion fiend seated next to me.

Rohit Gandhi’s and Rahul Khanna’s Cue is a fashion show that’s always fun,commercial as they are in their craft. Varun Bahl always has beautiful shows with many ideas; moreover everything is wearable and size-flexible. It’s lovely to see Anand Bhushan grow in a really good direction,he’s made his aesthetic more feminine with softer textures.

Designers who win are those who understand that the runway is also a stage.

namratanow@gmail.com