High Five

Pinch yourself if you will... Lakme India Fashion Week LIFW has completed half a decade. With the fifth LIFW set to open in Delhi on April...

Pinch yourself if you will8230; Lakme India Fashion Week LIFW has completed half a decade. With the fifth LIFW set to open in Delhi on April 27, the Fashion Design Council of India FDCI8212;the apex body of Indian designers8212;claims that surveys have shown a Rs 200 crore turnover for the designer wear business this financial year. Says FDCI executive director Vinod Kaul, 8220;Five years back, the projected annual growth was 5-10 per cent. Now it8217;s 20-25 per cent.8221; What else has changed?

DESPERATELY SEEKING A NON-P3P IMAGE
When a leading national publication featured Suneet Varma on its cover a few years back, for an article on 8220;Page 3 Persons8221;, the Delhi-based designer was fuming. 8220;People see the two hours of partying, they don8217;t see the 42 hours of work I put in every day,8221; he raged then. Today, he adds, 8220;Some designers are still caught up in the hard-partying, desperate-to-be-on-Page-3 frenzy. It8217;s taken two years of hard work for me to ensure that I8217;m not on Page 3. It takes away from the image you want to have.8221;

BUT SERIOUSLY, THEY8217;RE IN BUSINESS
Designers were once seen as people who made wedding trousseaux for rich people. Now, with an increasing number making a foray into precirc;t-agrave;-porter clothing that8217;s less complex, mass producible and therefore less expensive, designer wear is more accessible to the public. Balance by Rohit Bal, AS by Ashish and Smita Soni, and Varma8217;s Le Spice are all headed there. The retail network is widening. Cross-country retail chains and manufacturers like Shoppers8217; Stop and Pantaloons are joining hands with designers. The designers have ideas, the big companies have the infrastructure to produce big numbers.

BE INDIAN, THINK GLOBAL
8220;You think my show is late?! Do you know that in the West 2-3 hours is the norm?8221; is the LIFW participant8217;s constant refrain. But the West is no longer just an excuse for tardiness, it8217;s an example to be followed. If Tarun Tahiliani is putting jackets on the ramp in April, and the AS collection for LIFW includes taffeta silk, that8217;s because in developed international markets, designers work a season in advance. They present fall-winter clothing at fashion shows in spring, so that when orders are placed, they have a few months for production.

More foreign buyers are coming in at each LIFW. But since international retailers are finicky, 8216;quality8217; and 8216;finish8217; are the new Indian buzzwords. Does this mean Vijay and Shobhna Arora8217;s clothes will no longer have threads hanging from hemlines? Perhaps that too shall come to pass8230;

HOLD THAT YAWN
There8217;s plenty that has not changed. Designers are still divided between the behenji-bhaisaab brigade and those who were to the manor born. And everyone still addresses Rohit Bal as Gudda, even if they just met him that morning.

Designers once ran down their colleagues in the press. But since they no longer work in isolation, this is a potentially embarrassing tendency. The designer you bitched about in a newspaper yesterday may be seated next to you at an FDCI meeting today. So ranting is usually off the record. Some chaps rip fellow designers apart faster than a piece of discarded fabric, making you wonder who coined the phrase 8220;designer fraternity8221;. Cane and Abel?

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BAL SE DUBAL TAK
A decade back, there were just a few designers who were household names8212;the talented pioneers, and others with impeccable partying credentials. But a host of youngsters have now earned the spotlight because they8217;ve done a great job at LIFW: Aki Narula, Anshu Arora Sen, Sabyasachi Mukherjee8230; Holding independent fashion shows is an expensive affair. At LIFW, they get to have a show at a much lower cost, with the infrastructure all laid out, and media eyeballs assured. Have you heard of Sonam Dubal, Varun Bahl, or Falguni and Shane Peacock? You will this week.