Interest, incredulity, and some biz at fashion week  ( August '14,2001, HBL)

IT'S official. Seven days, 27 collections, endless stretches of legs displaying more than 300 garments and 1,890 walks down the ramp later at India Fashion Week 2001, it can safely be said the country's nascent fashion designer community has more to it than just tones of glamour, hype and well-oiled PR outfits.

As the stardust settled on the grand finale of the India Fashion Week 2001 here on Sunday evening to appreciative applause from some of corporate India's heavyweights, including Mr Vindi Banga, Mr Deepak Parekh, Mr Sunil Alagh, and Mr Vijay Mallya, a sizable portion of the 44-strong fashion designer contingent who `showed' at the event had made an impression on teams of buyers who were talent-scouting to seed their designer dreams.

And, there were many of the latter variety haunting the place right from London's high-fashion destination, Selfridges, seeking to add Indian flavour to its portfolio, retail chains Shoppers' Stop, Simone Tata's Westside, the Piramal's Crossroads and Gautam Singhania's team scouting to add pizzazz to Be:, the Raymond group's foray into designerwear pret.

Topping the success stories, of course, is what the Fashion Design Council team considers its biggest coup -- the signing-up of designers Anshu Arora Sen, Aki Narula and Monisha Singh to provide collections for their upcoming mega in-store event, the recreation of Bollywood to woo Londoners. Other business tie-ups happened too, though not all of them as high-profile.

Delhi-based designers Leena and Asheema Singh who retail their label through studio Kaaya picked up orders from an Indian-run retail chain in Australia for their entire collection. Ditto with London's Variety Silk Stores which stocks up on outfits from a number of other Indian labels. The venue of the event buzzed with rumours of other tie-ups but the Indian designer community decided to keep mum while a reluctant buyer community played cautious by maintaining that while they have spotted talent, the signing-up process would still take time.

Tata's Westside, for instance, has signed up at least three designers who showed at the event but is not yet ready to announce the deal.

While the FDCI itself promoted the event this time as the `Business of Fashion' , the buyer community seemed a tad disappointed about the way the designers reacted to their overtures. Most of the designers played truant from the stalls displaying their collection and buyers dropping in with enquiries had to tackle the former's staff who had no knowledge of the products or their prices.

A point of concern also seemed to be the wearability of the clothes on display and though artistic creativity is their privilege, the designers, if they see themselves developing into an industry on the lines of those abroad, (designers in major cities abroad make their money largely from pret lines), have to examine the relevance of their work at ground level. Rohit Bal will probably not be amused since he thinks fashion is all about drama and fantasy but no buying house or individual customer will put their money in clothes that make the wearer look like he/she is about to perform at the Lido. ``Most of the stuff that I saw on the ramps is completely unwearable. The designers are working in isolation without knowing ground level realities', says Mr Vinod Kaul, Director, Designerwear projects, for Gautam Singhania's Be:, the new retail chain.

Last month, the new venture signed on five designers, including Arjun Khanna, Priyadarshini Rao and Aparna Suneja, to give shape to its dream of having a 100 strong retail designer pret chain in India within three years.

Mr Kaul's statement is echoed by Ms Fern Mallis, Vice-President, IMG, and Executive Director of 7th on Sixth, ``Why should I come here to see low-cut trousers and halter-neck blouses that I see on ramps all over the world? Indian designers have to realise that if they are to make a mark in the global fashion market, they have to leverage the huge variety of their local culture and give it a very regional flavour.''

Ms Fern, who sat through the entire seven-day event, appreciates the wide variety of textiles and traditional colours and crafts of India but said designers have to take a call on whether they wanted to retain their individuality or churn out uniform looks in collections, much as she says designers in the rest of the world do. Says Ms Simone Tata, ``Some of the clothes were too sophisticated to find space in retail chains and too expensive for pret lines.'' Ms Tata, however, says the event was a great way to tune in to fashion trends, the seasons colours and styles, which is why she was a frequent visitor at the ramp shows.

FDCI, meanwhile, says the event has achieved to a large extent exactly what it set out to do -- give Indian fashion designers a common platform to display their work, provide an opportunity conducive to building business relationships and facilitate a dialogue between buyers and sellers.

``You have to appreciate the fact that the rest of the world's fashion industry has several decades of experience while we are just a few years old. I think that we should appreciate the fact that within a short span of time we actually have an Indian fashion week which could, if handled properly, compete with the fashion weeks in London, New York or Milan,'' says Mr Sumeet Nair, Executive Director, FDCI.