INDIA FASHION WEEK - THE INCEPTION

Historically, India has been globally acknowledged as a country for its rich textile heritage, but fashion, as an industry, continues to be challenged with several infrastructural and industry issues.

Until recently, leading Indian designers primarily focussed on couture lines and wedding trousseaus. Over the last 4-5 years, as increasing number of people have joined the designer/fashion industry (designers, textile designers, models, make-up artists, hairstylists, stylists, photographers, etc). However, the target customer base has witnessed limited growth in the same period.

Hence, the need for affordable pret-a-porter clothing, priced between Rs 500-10,000. This would help expand the customer base significantly, and grow the Indian fashion industry.

Recognising this, in 1998, the Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI) was born as a single entity representing the buiness interests of the designer fraternity across the country. To address the need to grow the target customer base and the industry, FDCI launched their 'fashion week' initiative, which would serve as a single platform to facilitate buyer-seller interaction within the fashion industry.

The event is titled as 'India' Fashion Week, to represent the national scope of the fashion industry of our country unlike fashion weeks held internationally, where they are 'city' specific (such as New York Fashion Week or Milan Fashion Week).

LAKME INDIA FASHION WEEK 2001 - HIGHLIGHTS

Following the success of the first-ever Lakme India Fashion Week in 2000 in New Delhi, the FDCI and IMG decided to hold the second edition, Lakme India Fashion Week 2001, in Mumbai, the commercial capital of India.

LAKME INDIA FASHION WEEK (LIFW) 2001 was a high-profile spectacle, much like any international Fashion Week, where the very best of the entire India fashion industry was presented to a focused target audience. Some of the main features of the core event were as follows:

• The 2001 edition of this annual event was held at the Taj Mahal Hotel, Mumbai, to showcase men's and women's wear designer collections from August 6-12, 2001.
  
  
• The entire banqueting facility of the Taj Mahal was utilized, and the venue contained the main showing area (stage, ramp, 450 seating capacity), an exhibition area (38 stalls exhibiting designer clothes + sponsor booths), an on-site media-center, corporate hospitality lounge, a Buyer hospitality lounge, the Kingfisher Kafe, a seminar/workshop room and the Lakme & Sunsilk Beauty Salon.
  
  
• The following 44 designers showed their "pret" designs through 27 fashion shows in one venue over 7 days:
  
  Aki Narula, Savio Jon, Ritu Kumar, Monisha Jaising, Deepika Govind, Kimono by Kiran Uttam Ghosh, Poonam Bhagat, Abhishek Gupta, Nandita Basu, Cue by Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khanna, Puja Nayyar, Rocky S, Anshu Arora Sen, Araiya, Malini Ramani, Lalit & Sunita Jalan, Monisha Bajaj, Monapali, Monoviraj Khosla, Aparna Jagdhari, Lina Tipnis, Priyadarshini Rao, Anjana Bhargav, Shantanu & Nikhil, Ashish Soni, Manju & Bobby Grover, Ranna Gill, Payal Jain, Anant by Shobhna & Vijay Arora, Kotwara by Meera & Muzaffar Ali, Tarun Tahiliani, Anita Dongre, Anuradha Vakil, Jattin Kochhar, Ashima & Leena Singh, Anamika Khanna, Pratap, Niki Mahajan, Sangeeta Chopra, Studio Valaya, Krishna Mehta, Manish Malhotra, Rina Dhaka and Rohit Bal
  
  
• Besides the thirteen individual and twelve group fashion shows, there was the Sunsilk Pro Colour Hair Fashion show, and the Lakme Grand Finale show (comprising special collections from three designers).

LAKME INDIA FASHION WEEK 2001 - FULL COVERAGE