From couture, to diffusion, to prêt. The designs of fashion in India, since the inception of the India Fashion Week just five years back, has seen the high-brow fashion designer stoop to meet the masses at their price points. From sheer drama on the catwalk to a drama created to draw buyers and not just mere applause to the rounds of cocktails and Pg 3 titter, the success of the annual Weeks can now be measured in terms of this gradual movement. Incidentally for this edition, ‘Join the fashion movement’ was the avowed motto of the Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI), the apex body that organises this seven-day ritual of fashion pomp and pageantry.
Understandably so, the mood at the recently concluded Lakme India Fashion Week (LIFW) was gung-ho. The parties rocked (Ok, a couple didn’t quite). The shows ran late, but business they sure transacted – better and bigger than the last four. The turnout of buyers was reasonably global with those from chains like Be:, Piramyd, Shoppers’ Stop, etc to a sizeable number from West Asia (Jeddah, Dubai, Kuwait, Sharjah), Hong Kong, Singapore, London and New York, many of whom have signed up plenty of designers.
FDCI chief Vinod Kaul told IMAGES BoF that the business transacted at this Week was around 30-35 per cent higher than the Rs 28 crore at last year’s event. And, that’s what matters. What matters also is the fact that suddenly fashion has become fashionable in India – prêt no longer a vague term used only by those in the business of fashion.
In a way, it all started with two Indian beauties triumphing on the global stage. Suddenly there was a rash of beauty pageants all over the country with a hunt on for a Miss Mokokchung in northeastern Nagaland and even perhaps a Miss Bulandshahar, a town in Uttar Pradesh that one gets to hear or read about mostly with reference to criminal activities. Along with beauty, the focus also was on fashion. Ritu Kumar, Tarun Tahiliani, Rohit Bal, Abu Jani, Hemant Trevedi, and the likes were beginning to be uttered with a certain amount of awe – at least in metros and mini-metros. Fashion isn’t shining as yet among the masses (Can it really afford to? But, that’s digressing from the issue), though the awareness has seeped in. And it is this growing awareness in tandem with the ongoing malling of the country that has made the erstwhile haute couture couturier look inwards too.
There has been a realisation that big profits may not necessarily come from the big pockets looking for an elaborate trousseau – that there is a teeming market out there. That fashion is also about selling big numbers, that fashion also means funds to grow big and that a lot of this can be achieved by selling in big numbers – prêt, indeed, is the answer. The target, thus, has gradually shifted from the NRI or the richie rich as they wafted from one do to another. From the elite to also the hoi polloi, it’s been one long herring-bone to running stitch, though some like Tarun Tahiliani would still rather not step into prêt. “What is prêt?” he questions almost acerbically. “It does not mean rolling out some fifty T-shirts in cheap fabric and run-of-the mill designs in some garage somewhere. Prêt means to produce in a factory where you are knocking off around a lakh pieces or so. Even your prêt must feel luxurious and styled. I am just biding my time. Almost 95 per cent of the people in our industry are struggling to bring themselves to this level.”
“M&S”, Tahiliani cites an example “is prêt. It gives you fantastic quality”. While he may not have deigned it fit as yet to tap the growing midsegment population’s crave for reasonably priced but ‘designer’ clothing, more and more couturiers are joining the prêt flock, seeking to retail at Be:, Shoppers’ Stop, Lifestyle and other such chains where the footfalls are as mixed as any Indian town or city can get; where big time conversions can happen if the designer merchandise costs anywhere around Rs 300-3,000 – no shadow work here for a designer range that till recently began nowhere less than at least Rs 5,000-8,000.
So along with Ritu Kumar and Rohit Bal, there are a whole lot of designers, old and new, who in a bid to sell off the rack have gone prêt or are beginning to go prêt stitching stylish, well cut, affordable and wearable clothing. And, it was along these parameters that we asked a cross-section of the buyers to rate the designers at the fifth LIFW. Surprisingly, many from within and even outside the country did the rating only after we promised that their individual preferences would not be disclosed.
The now-not-so-new-kid on the block, Sabyasachi Mukherjee topped the list followed by Tarun Tahiliani and Priyadarshini Rao in the second spot, and Rohit Bal, Nikhil and Shantanu, Aki Narula, Puja Nayyar, Rajesh Pratap Singh, and Monisha Jaisingh in a tie for the third spot with an equal number of buyers rooting for them. The fourth spot was taken by Ritu Kumar, Muzzafar and Meera Ali, Wendell Rodericks, Manish Arora, Malani Ramani, and Ranna Gill. The fifth place was claimed by Rina Dhaka, Narendra Kumar ‘Chai’, Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khanna ‘Cue’, Paras and Shalini ‘Geisha Designs’, and newbie Varun Bahl.
Mukherjee’s “clean lines, great price points, and amazing sense of style and design” won over most of the buyers. Tahiliani’s jewelled T-shirts were a hit and of course his “classic style and excellent workmanship”. Rao’s price points and “very prêt” outfits ensured her a place along with the master couturier. The most aspired for buyers, Albert Morris from Browns, London, and Michael Fink from Saks Avenue were stiff-lipped about their individual preferences, though Morris let out that Ashish and Smita Soni were “very good” and for Rajesh Pratap Singh it was a simple “love him”.
“There is a great potential here”, averred Morris, adding “it’s like a diamond in the rocks. All have to be nurtured.” Asked for his rating, Fink commented that “it is not so much about rating as it is about finding the right creativity, quality, and touch of whimsy – something that touches the emotions. It is also about a sense of style that is both global and individual.” The duo said they had shortlisted some designers but would be able to stitch a deal only after details like volume, pricing and shipments are worked out. Both commended the Week for the smooth flow of events. “The LIFW is very young. Give it time to grow. It needs patronage from the government. There is no retail system here that can support the Indian designer and that is the starting point. Plus, it has not got the amount of exposure it deserves. We also have to look into shipment problems, the seasons for which the designers have prepared, and so on and so forth.”
Other buyers too were sympathetic about the limitatons of the fashion designer in terms of retail infrastructure but most grumbled about the “treatment to buyers. This is a trade show. Why have buyers not been given the option to attend the show they want to? It is absurd”. Kaul defended the decision to give designers the option to invite from the buyers list provided to them to “cut down on fake buyers. Quite a few arrive from the entertainment point of view. Also people land up on the last day and expect to get passes to all the shows. I agree that in this process a lot of genuine buyers too may have suffered, but each designer had a stall where his/her products were there for all to see.”
Christane Serra from the Indian Chamber of Commerce in Italy, who loves to “dress well” and has attended shows at Paris, London, Italy and elsewhere commented on the lack of “cover book, photographs or leaflets...Either the Indian designer caters to the gigantic local market to do the ‘weddings’ or make a serious move towards organising themselves with a full logbook with designs, colours, schemes, material samples, sizes available, accessories, etc which can then be selected by each boutique/buyer”.
Sarani Iqbal from Saraya, Kuwait, saw a lot of “repeat trends, almost cliched embellishments. No futuristic trends were on display. What I saw here was already bought by me some six months back in Mumbai.” A buyer catering to Americans and Europeans who “go for the Indian look”, appreciated the workmanship but stressed on the need to focus on finishing and sizing which “many a time leave a lot to be desired.”
“It would be easier if designers are categorised into customers and the range they are working in as international and purely Indian and even fusion ranges are entirely different. They also should be more organised in terms of colour options, sizing, and time of collections. For instance, here at LIFW, they are too late for spring ‘05 and too early for winter ‘05,” said Rohit Aneja from the UK.
Another crucial point raised by the buyer community was the lack of a theme. “It is is difficult to contemplate what the designer is trying to say. That is something they have to work towards. It is almost as if each is on a different planet. Besides, the new ones have no lookbooks, some are clueless on the delivery mode, and must gear themselves to deliver in shorter notice periods. They need to get more organised.”
“The attitude of designers”, added another, “is not what I was expecting. They should get more professional if they want more international buyers to come in. I don’t think many designers here exploited the opportunity given to them to meet so many buyers under one roof! I thought they could deliver a lot more faster. Some designers lacked that business professionalism.” Although Tarun Tahiliani’s office came in for praise for his “very professional office”, he along with Rina Dhaka were censured for their “unapproachable attitude. Dhaka must get more professional. Dealing with Western designers is so much simpler. In India, designers think that if the buyers need them, they will look for them.”
Cut, stitched and packed away for another year, the LIFW has traversed a long path in a short time. It has matured and going by the response from the domestic market, another event, a ‘market week’, will be organised this October to showcase spring/summer ‘05 collections for retail chains like Shoppers’ Stop, Lifestyle, Pantaloon, Be:, etc. “Normally fashion weeks are a bi-annual event. The industry here too is growing and maturing. The big chains had expressed their desire to buy twice a year and so instead of having a second Week, we will have a market week in October”, Kaul expanded. May the weeks grow and business bloom!
