The catwalk is turning out to be tricky. For a sposnorship-crunch has queered the India Fashion Week ramp.
The Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI) and the Percept D'Mark (PDM), the event agency for the India Fashion Week (IFW) are finding it difficult to rope in a sponsor for the event, barely nine weeks away. Moreover, a clause in the FDCI tender over the deadline to find a sponsor for the fashion fiesta is giving sleepless nights to Percept D'Mark (PDM).
The fashionistas are jittery. They have no clue about the status of the event and are not sure whether they will be able to strut off their wares. In a written statement, director general -FDCI, Rathi Vinay Jha told the HT, “The FDCI is on track on all aspects.” Jha and Preeti Singh of PDM said they would be able to name the sposnors soon.
But the inside story is slightly different. There are no sposnors waiting in the wings yet. The couture industry is divided. Sunil Dungarwal, a retailer, said, “The split has created an ambiguity of sorts among sposnors and is sending out wrong signals.”
The clause stipulating a timeframe to bidding agencies to find sponsors included a rider that the shortlisted agency’s contract could be scrapped if it did not meet the deadline. Its been a month since the deadline has lapsed and PDM, which was supposed to bring in sponsors has failed to come up with a suitable replacement for Lakme, which has pulled out.
When FDCI requistioned fresh bids after the expiry of IMG’s and Lakme’s terms in June 2005, it said there would be two shows this year and the event agency will have to raise funds as it will be deemed a commercial partner. In return it would be paid.
{{/usCountry}}When FDCI requistioned fresh bids after the expiry of IMG’s and Lakme’s terms in June 2005, it said there would be two shows this year and the event agency will have to raise funds as it will be deemed a commercial partner. In return it would be paid.
{{/usCountry}}The tender specified that a sponsor had to be lined up four months before the event — or in other words the agency had to show that it had sufficient sponsorship backing. If it failed to do so, it would have to be armed with its own resource pool.
In case it floundered, the agency would have to inform the FDCI within three weeks after the four-month deadline so that the FDCI could generate its own moolah. The FDCI would also be free to unloop the agency. The first deadline for PDM, the event manager and commercial partners of FDCI for IFW 2006, ended on December 4, 2005 and the three week extension after that wound up on December 25, 2005.