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| Edited By: Sathya Saran |Source: |Updated: Nov 21, 2013, 01:44 PM IST
The second fashion week in Delhi this year is a first — and a necessary evil.
NEW DELHI: It could be same time, last season, if you look at the buzz of media and PR people , peppered with designers, rushing to and from the various areas of the Grand, in Delhi. But there is a marked difference at Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week (WIFW), if you look under the skin.
“This is the first second Fashion week to be held ever, and it is the first time there is an actual decrease in the number of designers showing”, says Vinod Kaul. We don’t smell sour grapes here. Kaul should know, having held the reins of the FDCI through consecutive seasons, before Rathi Vinay Jha took over.
Kaul does see this season mainly as a media event. “The big designers need to be seen here, being on the fashion week ramp is a pill they have taken and must keep taking,” he adds.”They need the publicity to push their global ambitions.” Most other (read lesser?) designers were not so gung ho about participating in two seasons: it is too much work, too much expense, and then there are other committments.
Ritu Kumar, for example, is away at Paris for her showings, and others are not quite sure buyers will be present to make it all worthwhile. Especially since this week falls between international fashion weeks, and the holiday season in Europe.
In fact the much-hyped seminar where Isabella Blow of Tatler fame (here in her personal capacity as fashion watcher) and Jenny Andrews from South Africa bracketted Tarun Tahiliani, there were no buyers, though the seminar was meant for them.
But the event, most Fashion week regulars opine, ‘has matured’. Among the event watchers is Rana Danesh of MAC, here from Dubai on invitation. “Hush, I am only watching, this time,” she says. “MAC is being invited to take on the makeup for the events, like we do in UK and the US, but I need to ensure some criteria are in place before we can take this up... nothing’s for sure yet, I have yet to watch the shows.”
But this is one indicator, besides the recurring presence of foreign media, that India is beginnng to create more than just ripples on the fashion ocean that links the west to the east. Whether there will be a tsunami as the end result, is something time will tell.
