STREETS AHEAD IN STYLE & SUBSTANCE
Asmita Aggarwal (HT City)

It had the best elements of street chic. Today’s smart designers tweak and steal street fashions, then send them back as hip new products. NIFT-ian Puja Nayyar’s show had it all – the fitted blouse, twisted, ruffled and treated playfully. Then there was a wrap skirt worn over trousers besides natty zipper jackets and short pleated dresses.

It was young and school-girlish, says designer Poonam Bhagat. “Puja’s clothes have a lot of funk. I liked the candy floss coloured skirt,” adds Bhagat.

There was sandblasted, bleached and worn-out denim in Puja’s collection, which, along with Aparna Chandra, managed to create chemistry on the ramp – the former by its sheer freshness and the latter with innovative use of Bhutanese silk. “The cobalt blue skirt and the burning red one in silk were spectacular,” Deepak pallo Malhotra was overheard while walking out of the hall.

Aparna’s pencil thin skirts, large collars and cuffs accentuated by lace trimmings besides rust-coloured high slit jackets were in keeping with an Oriental theme but with the charm of the Victorian era.

By incorporating utility chic and using twill, tulle, mul and canvas with a local flavour, the duo never forgot that concept and presentation are as important as garment construction. The no-fuss collection was really ready-to-wear – not just in name but in execution as well.

Even as models strutted down the ramp with coke cans stuck in their hair, designer Vidhi Singhania exclaimed, “Fashion comes from the street. People without lots of money have been doing it in style for years. But the clothes were incredibly sexy and used references from the Victorian era, without being perverse.”