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'Is LIFW for buyers or socialites?'
Is the Lakme India Fashion Week a haunt of airhead socialites? Gautam Singhania, chairman and managing director of Raymond Ltd, thinks the overbearing presence of society queens is taking attention away from serious business.
Is the Lakme India Fashion Week a hub for serious retail buyers or a haunt of airhead socialites?
Gautam Singhania, chairman and managing director of Raymond Ltd, thinks the
overbearing presence of society queens is taking attention away from the serious business of the fashion week.
"There certainly seem to be more Page Three people than buyers," Singhania
said. "I have a buyer from Dubai calling me for passes. But why does he need to call me? He must have been turned away from somewhere.
"Who is laying out the red carpet for the buyers? Let's call a spade a spade."
Things at the fashion week, now in its sixth year, are definitely better after years when shows started more than two hours late and buyers sometimes
had to fight for seats. This year, there is a sense of clockwork precision and less of useless hype.
Even the much touted fashion week parties have garnered less attention.
But Singhania, head of textile and apparel giant Raymond, said more needs to
be done if the nascent $50 million fashion industry is to take on the world and attract mass attention at home.
"You go to the Milan fashion week, or anywhere else, no one can get in there
apart from the press or buyers. But is our hall filling up with buyers? No. And that is an issue."
For the past few years, the fashion week has attracted many big international buyers like Selfridges, Saks Fifth Avenue and Browns. This year's addition has been Harrods.
The buyer list also includes big names from the Gulf like Shaikh Salah Duaij Al Sabah of Moda-In and the Diamond Trading Centre, apart from a host of national and international buyers.
But it has also been criticised for failing to concentrate on the burgeoning domestic market and inviting big name buyers from abroad who don't finally
buy that much.
"There are thousands of retailers around the country," said Singhania, whose BE chain of stores kickstarted corporate backing of fashion in India. "But how many are here?"
