MUMBAI: This time around, it was the young designers who stole the show at the recently concluded Wills India Fashion Week (WIFW).
From a gamut of 113 designers who showed at the fashion extravaganza, it was the young crop whom walked away with the most accolades (and business!). The design aesthetics of up-and-coming couturiers like Rahul Mishra, Samant Chauhan, Masaba Gupta, Nachiket Barve to Anupama Dayal and Aneeth Arora were lauded for their freshness and bold ideation.
The India fashion industry is worth a whopping estimated Rs 720 crore, and young designers are fast taking up big slices of the pie.
Said Samant Chauhan, whose collection received a lot of interest at the WIFW: “The business this time was exceptionally good. Our orders were doubled and tripled this time. This is very surprising and encouraging. We got orders from Singapore and almost every city of Middle East, including Kuwait.”
Anupama Dayal, whose ‘Gulabi’ collection was much-appreciated, added, “The business was excellent. We got orders from US, Kuwait, Bahrain and from a lot of Indian stores. I feel that it’s a good idea to focus on some of the unexplored tier-II and tier-III cities in India and hopefully, I will focus on that in days to come,” Dayal told IANS.
Amidst all the fashion-forward hoopla, Bollywood maintained a low profile, with only the likes of Anil Kapoor, Pallavi Sharda, Alia Bhatt, Mughda Godse, Raima Sen, Gulshan Grover, Rahul Dev, Koel Purie, filmmaker Anil Sharma, Neena Gupta and newcomer Urvashi Rautela, taking to the ramp this time.
Rahul Mishra’s collection titled ‘Kiss’ (Keep it Simple and Sport), with bold usage of a lot of handlooms like khadi, jamdani and bandini on apparels, garnered quite a few fans.
“My designs are all about ‘east meets west’. This has garnered positive response from around the globe. As for the business, I feel satisfied only when I add a few buyers in my already existing client list and in that regard, this season was encouraging.
“I have got new buyers from New York, Kuwait and other Middle East cities,” said Mishra.
Bollywood favourites Masaba Gupta and Nida Mahmood too accumulated praise and business alike, for their diverse collections. Masaba’s Chandragupta, machine prints and checkered dots collection was a runaway hit, while Nida’s ode to one hundred years of Indian cinema turned out to be a highlight.
She merged motifs of actors like Amitabh Bachchan, Amjad Khan and Zeenat Aman on her outfits. Also, her Bengal tant saris and 3D metallic dresses became the talk of the WIFW attendees during the opening day of the five-day fashion gala.
(With inputs from IANS)
