Luscious colors, young imprints, a burst of new ideas and fresh energy…. WIFW SS’11 is a coming together of the new brigade. It’s a moment for all of us design aficionados to press the alt + refresh button in our mind and get set for a completely new mood board. Change the shades of your rose tinted glasses and please welcome a whole new gen next that has something new and nice to say. And this lot is also unabashedly Indian and proud to be so.
A design protagonist known to have a soft corner for young and new design, FDCI’s Impresario Sunil Sethi pulls a coup by bringing together so many more, new and extremely talented names to show at this fashion week. Infact the first day itself set the tone with rare talents of Cell Design, Anand Kabra, Rahul Reddy and Rahul Mishra showing the way fashion ought to go. Fashion forward it were today as the young lot dipped back into Indian influences to create what I call Indian soul infused into a spanking new, globally viable silhouette.
Lets face it India is a young nation. The under thirty ascribe for most of retail selling and retail surveys stop the age limit of the ‘buying lot’ at 45.Then why should fashion remain the domain of the top ten who have already completed a decade or two in the business? Off course they have shown the beacon to Indian fashion. To their credit goes the emergence of this young design conscious new generation. It is they who had the Indian man and woman think beyond predictions and wear something a more western silhouette. However as the design schools churn out a whole new crop every season and fashion trends turn turtle at the flip flop of the whimsical socialite’s eyelid, it’s time to say ‘I do’ to young designers.
On day one those who showed promise were the two Rahuls: Reddy and Mishra. Rahul Reddy once again dipped into the Indian palette creating a ‘this and that’ collection of very yummy and varied silhouettes. Each ones a muse to themselves. And the other Rahul, Mishra like many other new kids on the block gladdened the heart by hand picking the mythical lotus flower out of a pichwais and placed them on clearly western silhouettes….each piece able to walk as much on Champs Elysees as it could in Connaught Place. Then there were the beige story of Cell design upbeat yet casual chic, created for those daring at heart. And Anand Kabra touched a feudal note as he took a tour of his city Hyderabad going from nawabi elegance to street chic.
A walk down the stalls reflected an Indophile spirit as the new designers on a never before creative high gave India a new mesmerizing avatar. Manish Arora, the one senior designer who becomes younger in his design sensibility every year created a yummy new line under his new brand tag INDIAN. A little easier on the graphic story Manish seems to say it with colors and cuts…. All in all welcome to gen next as fashion forward give s the Indian deisgn sensibility a new refreshing appeal. Reiterating my belief that the western buyer, on his visit to India might look for perfect western cuts but he still seals that hint of India in everything he buys…
Posted by : Anshu Khanna at 10:30 AM
