Moving fashion

There were some skeptics last time,” said Anil Chopra,“but we’ve laid their doubts to rest. People were not willing to believe that showing for the current season made business sense. But we took that risk and it has paid off.” Chopra,CEO of Lakme Lever,was addressing the press conference to announce the designers and sponsors of the Lakme Fashion Week,Winter/Festive 2010 which takes off on September 17. The LFW,which had taken a bold move last time,has decided to continue with the agenda this time too. As Sujal Shah,vice-president and head of fashion at IMG,claimed,the increase in the number of applications for all the categories is proof of that. “There’s been a 44 per cent rise in the number of designers applying to the Established Designers category,while we’ve had 172 applications for the Gen Next category from all around the world.”

This edition promises to be special in a few more ways. “We’re celebrating five years of the Gen Next show and,in honour of that,we’re having some of our most promising designers who had debuted with Gen Next at LFW,walking the ramp with their creations.” This special show will include Anuj Sharma,Aneeth Arora,Kallol Datta,Rimzim Dadu,Kunal Rawal,Nachiket Barve,Nitin Bal Chauhan,Rahul Mishra,Sailex Ngairangbam and Swapnil Shinde. But more excitingly,walking for the first time on the LFW runway,will be Delhi-based designers Ritu Kumar and Manish Arora,while Malini Ramani is slated to be the Grand Finale designer. “This is a strong indication of how effective the LFW platform is,and should put to rest any rumours of the Delhi-Mumbai divide,” said Ravi Krishnan,managing director of IMG,South Asia.

Interestingly,the LFW has also tied up with

online fashion retailer Fashion and You in what Krishnan calls an effort to keep up with the digital age. “The Gen Next designers will be able to market their lines on the website with the Launch My Line initiative,and there will also be an LFW Pret line available.”The LFW is also organising an off-site show for the very first time,which will have designer Narendra Kumar showing his collection on the September 16 at Tote on the Turf,at Mahalaxmi Race Course.