Hindustan Times
Collection Confusion
When it comes to collections on the fashion runway, are we still confused as to what really should be showcased?
This is one question that repeatedly comes to my mind while I watch fashion designers present their creations one after the other each season.
Ten years ago, when fashion week started in India, I used to see seasonal confusions happening on the runway. When a Spring/Summer theme is attached comes the Fall/Winter collection and vice versa.
That went on for quite some time and often buyers, especially foreign buyers, would go back to their respective places without cutting even a single cheque. I remember once a Bombay-based designer couple presented their collection and after their show approached the Harvey Nichols buyer, a friend of mine, and asked for her feedback. The buyer told them that the season was wrong and that’s not what she was looking for… and the designers promptly told her, “then why don’t you tell us what you want and we will make that for you.”
Such was the ignorance among most fashion designers. The girl looked at them and told them, “oh no, that’s not how things work at fashion weeks!”
True. That’s definitely is not how things work at fashion weeks.
Even now that hasn’t changed. Even when fashion weeks follow their routines with seasonal themes, most participating designers do not adhere to the attached themes while making their collections. Even in the recent showings I see heavily embellished collections appearing on the runway. While fashion weeks are being touted as “prêt” events, these creations hardly look prêt, or I doubt whether they come with prêt price tags.
If the wedding season is close by, designers use fashion weeks’ platform to showcase their wedding collections. I wonder, why then the events are called ‘pret’ events? I think the blame should/must go to the jury or whoever is in charge of putting these on the runway.
It is the organizers or the jury who let these happen. After more than a decade of fashion weeks in the country, it is about time that we organised them with some seriousness so as to earn some respect from the international fashion community.
This of course is not to say that things have not improved. They definitely have. But we still have a long way to go. And the move has to be made now.
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