Some big designers give LFW the miss, but Arjun Khanna sets the cat among the pigeons by saying established designers don’t need fashion weeks.
Another season of the Lakme Fashion Week (LFW) is all set to begin this Friday and while there’s a fair share of top designers showing, quite a few ‘big’ names are missing from the line-up.
For starters, designer Sabyasachi Mukherji feels that fashion trends don’t have to change every six months. “If someone is spending an obscene amount of money on an outfit from my collection, I want it to carry on for at least a year,” he told After Hrs recently. Then there’s Pria Kataria Puri, who is busy with her clients in the Middle East (apart from a ‘personal commitment’) and upcoming designer Rahul Mishra, who is taking up a stall this year instead of showing.
Narendra Kumar Ahmed and Wendell Rodricks too seem to have limited their participation to sponsored shows. Also on the list of big designers missing from this season’s LFW is Arjun Khanna, who has opted out of LFW and other fashion weeks because he has ‘too many things on his plate’.
“I can’t do something just for the heck of it. I was showing my bridal line at a Dubai store this month and I am also considering moving out of my old store to a bigger place. So not showing at the fashion weeks has been a calculated decision and while it’s a great platform for younger designers, the established ones can do without them now. The kind of effort and money we’d put in a fashion week wouldn’t justify the resulting business,” he points out by way of explanation.
Designer Krishna Mehta, however, doesn’t agree with Arjun’s point of view. “Everyone’s entitled to their opinion and for me, the idea behind participating in a fashion week is not just to attract some customers. I think as established designers and trendsetters, we have the responsibility to offer the fashion industry something new every season. You have to express yourself through your collections,” she Krishna.
Designer Rocky S feels that showing at a fashion week is a necessity. “Sure, I have skipped the fashion weeks many times, but I have realised that it’s the ideal platform for all designers; after all, you get maximum exposure to media and buyers under one roof. It’s like a one-stop-shop,” says Rocky.
Meanwhile Lakme advisor Anil Chopra feels that everybody has their own take on things. “The way I see it, each designer has their own view about what kind of a business model they want to follow — it could either be a separate show or a fashion week show. But the very fact that we have names such as Manish Malhotra, Tarun Tahiliani, Anamika Khanna and Rocky S (amongst others) participating in LFW, speaks volumes for the fact that established designers do want to be a part of the fashion week,” he says.
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