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Excitement soars as WLIFW nears
The excitement is palpable at the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week venue in New Delhi, says Rathi Vinay Jha, director general of the Fashion Design Council of India.
The excitement is palpable at the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week venue here, ahead of its April 5 opening, with designers engaged in "fittings". Models hope there will be no wardrobe glitches and an army of support personnel readying the twin runways and the trade areas for the five-day event.
"Take my word for it, it's going to be a grand event," says Rathi Vinay Jha, director general of the Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI) that is organising the event, now in its seventh edition.
The designers are certainly working towards that as was evident from the feverish activity at the "fittings" sessions that began Friday.
"Fittings are extremely important because they match clothes to the models," explained an FDCI official.
"For big shows like this, the designers and the models don't always work together from the start and it thus becomes important for both to fine tune their acts and remove any glitches there might be," the official added.
The "fittings" also help to prevent wardrobe malfunctions of the kind that happened on successive days during the ongoing Lakme Fashion Week in Mumbai as the costumes literally fell off the models as they were sashaying down the runway.
But then, such bloopers are part of the game and models have to learn to deal with them, Delhi's Neha Kapur said.
"If it happens on the runway, then you cannot blame the designers or the models. It's a hazard that one has to live with," she contended.
"It could happen because of a sudden tear or a button that gets lost but that's only because of the hurry with which you change your ensembles," Kapur added.
What then will the ensembles at the India Fashion Week be about?
"I have elements of mirror work from Hyderabad and phulkari of Gujarat to create what is actually a 2006 collection," explained designer Rina Dhaka.
"It's a fusion of the past and the present. I have slight references to the 1960s - very subtle - but there is more of the 1990s. There'll be silhouettes, high-waisted things and stuff you can wear with pants," she added.
As for the colours, "there's a subtlety of the greys and browns", Dhaka said.
With business high on her mind, Dhaka, who is a well-known brand at high-end stores in London, New York and Spain, would be showcasing "an international collection that I'm hoping to sell the world over".
How does her Indian line differ from the international one?
"When I'm doing my Indian collection it's diffusion (a combination of couture and ready-to-wear prêt) but when I'm participating abroad it's prêt where clothes are ordered not in single units but in quantities, colours and sizes," Dhaka explained.
Added model Neha Kapur: "Rina is all about being sexy, she always makes her models look really hot; there's lots of subtle colours, lots of greens and blacks."
Designer Neeta Bhargava's line is divided into three parts with black as the common theme.
"First is the bronze and black, the next is the white and black and then the red and black," she explained.
"All the three are very different. The first is inspired by flowers, the second is more jewel motifs and for the third, inspiration has been taken from wrought iron," Bhargava added.
"Wherever we could use paintings, we have done paintings on the garments. There's lots of surface ornamentation; I have developed a lot of sequins that have been added on to the garments," Bhargava said.
It's more or less a western collection with the accent on skirts, tops, jackets and accessories.
"In the entire collection, there are shoes and boots matching to the garments, belts, and nets for the hair for a rather grand overall look," Bhargava maintained, saying the line would appeal to both international and domestic buyers.
Close to 80 designers have confirmed their participation in the India Fashion Week. They include names like Abraham-Thakore, Abu-Sandeep, Ashima-Leena, Deepika Gehani, J.J. Valaya, Manish Arora, Raghvendra Rathore, Ritu Kumar, Rohit Bal, Rohit Gandhi, Satya Paul and Tarun Tahiliani.
While most designers will parade their collections on two ramps - a new innovation in the format - others will display their garments and accessories in a specially designated trade stall area.
