Despite the glitches and the occasional wardrobe malfunction, the eight year old India Fashion Week has instant recall and has carved out a special niche for itself. However, if you thought one fashion week was too long, gear up for an onslaught. From now till October between Delhi and Mumbai, there could be five different fashion weeks! It’s ironic that in New York and Paris, the fashion capitals of the world where the concept of fashion weeks began as early as the 1940s, they continue to hold just one big fashion event a year, while India, a tiny speck on the international fashion scene will host close to half a dozen. The Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI) which was started to promote Indian fashion aggressively has degenerated into a coalition of uneasy partnerships, with uncanny similarities to the Indian government. However, the government swayed and tottered but ultimately survived, while warring factions within the FDCI have turned the council into shambles with several top designers and management exiting to start a new Week. So in mid August, we have a Couture Week in Mumbai, in October there’s the FDCI Fashion Week in Delhi and a new fashion week started by a breakaway faction of the FDCI, tentatively called Prodigy Fashion. In between all these, somewhere, there’s the Lakme Fashion Week. Whew. Then there’s talk of Tranoi, a popular fashion trade event held in France, coming to India as well.The break within the FDCI comes at a particularly bad moment, right when the frivolity and shock value associated with fashion has subsided. According to estimates, the branded apparel market is pegged at Rs 5000 crores. The Indian luxury market is thought to be worth 2 billion dollars with a growth of twenty per cent every year. Indian designers are key players in this luxury clothing business, however, no one benefits from five fashion weeks. Not the designers, since the media will suffer from serious fashion fatigue and in all probability ignore it and international buyers will be confused over which event to attend, since they mostly overlap. The break within the FDCI was imminent since most of the members were designers with personal, clashing agendas. Their solution was to hire a retired bureaucrat to run the show with the hope that lobbying with the government for funds would become easier. Currently, the FDCI is hard at work raising funds from sponsors for their fashion week, barely two months away. Prodigy Fashion has tied up with the swanky new mall in Delhi, Emporio to host their event. Currently, they’ve got the most influential designers backing them, while Lakme Fashion Week which has been flailing behind the FDCI fashion week all this time finally has a chance to get ahead. But don’t bet on it.leher.kala@expressindia.com
