Season8217;s Greetings

But Mumbai-based Ahmed, who hawks his creations under the label Chai, has got in this time. He8217;ll be showing next month at the Fashion Week in Delhi. His pragmatic approach to the entire affair is perhaps representative of the first-timers at this year8217;s IFW, as diverse in their design sensibilities as they are in their backgrounds and ages.

Men and women who appear, more often than not, to be professionals, respect jury decisions the IFW jury names remain undisclosed; sample outfits are shown to them without labels and are prepared to hang in there and try another time. Instead of vitiating the air with allegations of favouritism and the like.

Ahmed apart, there are six other first-timers in the fray, from a Singhania bahu to an ex-CBI director8217;s kids.

There8217;s Namrata Joshipura, once an assistant to Suneet Varma, who lives in New York with her husband, but frequently visits Delhi from where she produces her Joshipura label. And Vidhi Singhania who would rather be called a textile revivalist than a designer.

In the cut-throat world of Indian fashion, where connections count, Singhania is an aberration. She refuses to tom-tom her family name, calling her label just Vidhi.

8216;8216;Sometimes,8217;8217; says this Singhania bahu, 8216;8216;the family name could divert attention from the fact that I have been working hard and seriously with weavers for several years now.8217;8217;

Granted, but what8217;s this thing about Singhania 8216;8216;helping revive the Kotah sari into a contemporary fashion statement8217;8217; we found on the FDCI web site?

To say the Kotah sari required a revival would be a bit like taking credit for the popularity of the Kanjeevaram, right?

Singhania is unfazed, explaining patiently instead, 8216;8216;People would earlier wear only the Kotah sari, but I8217;ve used Kotah on handbags, trousers and cocktail dresses. I also want people to feel that a Kotah is as much a wardrobe essential as a Kanjeevaram or a Benarasi.8217;8217;

Like Singhania, their maiden appearance at the IFW also happens to be the first fashion show ever for siblings Gauri and Nainika Karan.

The sari-clad, camera-conscious Singhania is the complete style antithesis of the girlish Karans in their fitted tops and figure-hugging jeans. But they have plenty in common. They design what they would wear. And there8217;s The Family. Gauri and Nainika are the daughters of former CBI director Vijay Karan and former secretary in the Ministry of Food Processing Industries Pratibha Karan.

The sisters launched their label Magnetic Rag in December 2001. 8216;8216;Our designs are targeted at the body-conscious woman,8217;8217; says Nainika. There are other teams waiting to make their mark at IFW. The curiously named Dabiri is the work of 8216;8216;good friends8217;8217; Vandana Sawhney and Divya Bindra of Delhi.

Dabiri, incidentally, is an Arabic word meaning 8216;8216;the golden thread8217;8217;. More attractive to the ears, though, is the sound of the line they plan to showcase at IFW. It will be called 8216;8216;Skin8217;8217; and will feature flesh-coloured clothing with lots of layering and sheer fabric.

Dabiri is pretty low-key in comparison with Mumbai8217;s husband-wife team Falguni and Shane Peacock. The barely-year-and-a-half -old label has been drawing attention with its imaginatively conceived ad campaign featuring socialite Nandita Mahtani, ex-wife of Karisma Kapoor8217;s husband Sanjay J Kapur.

Falguni was with Mudra when she met Shane. 8216;8216;My advertising background helps in the way we market ourselves,8217;8217; she says.

8216;8216;We don8217;t use models for our ads, we use people of substance to convey a certain image our clothes and that person stand for.8217;8217; They are already shooting their second campaign8212;this time for a new menswear line8212;with a male celebrity. Then there8217;s Varun Bahl, who, when we touched base with him, was in Milan, where he is holding an exhibition at the ongoing Milan Fashion Week.

At 27, Bahl has been an independent designer for just a couple of years. But he displays a business savvy and a way with words that belie his age and experience. 8216;8216;The designs at IFW will be what my handwriting is all about,8217;8217; he says smoothly. 8216;8216;I will just take it to another paragraph.8217;8217; It helps that he8217;s worked in his dad8217;s export house, and that he8217;s done an evening course at the National Institute of Fashion Technology NIFT, Delhi.

While Ahmed8217;s case is obvious, the other first-timers appear to have valid reasons for staying away from the IFW so far.

Singhania says she didn8217;t feel confident enough to show at the IFW in the past. 8220;This is a big experiment for me because it8217;s my first fashion show ever, so I have to see whether Kotah works on the ramp at all.8221; Joshipura, on the other hand, says, 8220;I8217;ve never tried to enter the fashion week before because the timing so far July/August clashed with the New York Market Week. This year suits me fine.8217;8217;

This time the confidence levels are high and the timing8217;s spot on. We will wait now for the IFW to decide whether they are late bloomers or just fads of the season.