Promises not kept

This time around, the Tranoi fair in Paris has left many designers disappointed. The ‘Indian Platform’ at Tranoi, which provides a platform to Indian designers at discounted prices, has been shelved. Jaydeep Ghosh tells more.

This time around, the Tranoi fair in Paris has left many designers disappointed. The ‘Indian Platform’ at Tranoi, which provides a platform to Indian designers at discounted prices, has been shelved.

The participation fee has gone up from 6000 euros a stall to 10,000 euros (approx), and the number of designers allowed to participate in Tranoi has come down to half, according to information received by the Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI) a month and a half ago.

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The list of participants included a lot of young designers who have a suffered a major blow. Abhishek Datta says “My repeated queries via email and sms failed to evoke any response from Tranoi.” It’s a similar case with designers Pankaj and Nidhi. When this reporter tried to contact the Tranoi organiser Michael Hadida, he too got no response.

The final list of Tranoi reads seven designers — Abraham and Thakore, Anand Kabra, Gaurav Gupta, Rohit Bal, Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khanna, Tarun Tahiliani and Varun Bahl.

Something fishy
Ranna Gill, who had paid 10,000 euros for a stall, was surprised to find that her name didn’t feature on Tranoi’s website. “I have brought this issue to Michael’s notice and he promised it will be sorted out soon.” (This reporter saw the invoice of 10,000 euros that Ranna had paid to Tranoi for participation)Also interesting to note is that Hadida, in an interview to International Herald Tribune on the sidelines of Tranoi Homme in January had said, “There are new English brands this season, but the most important expansion is coming from Russia and India.” The truth, however, is that there was not even a single designer from India then.

Are the Indian designers being taken for a ride? It’s a question that FDCI, FFI and FDPC should probably focus on. The Indian media’s experience of communication with Tranoi has been rather unfortunate. When this issue was brought up by scribes to Hadida, he dished out his visiting card to all and said, “Mail me your queries and I’ll revert ASAP.” But repeated emails and phone calls never evoked any response.