March 11: Two of India’s biggest fashion weeks respectively in Mumbai and Delhi will soon come together for the first time in 15 years; from the time when they began as an entity.
The biannual fashion weeks collaborating this time will be a 5-day phy-gital fashion event that is scheduled to take place from March 16 to 21. The opening show of the event will be by Anamika Khanna who is a Kolkata-based designer.
Sunil Sethi serving as the chairman of Fashion Design Council of India, told WWD, “It is a tripartite agreement. With Rise Worldwide and Lakmé Lever and us making the best call for the time.” To mention, FDCI is a body that organizes India Fashion Week.
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Sethi also observed, “FDCI has always worked on the international buying season schedule, and we have stuck to it for 21 years. But while organizing the digital fashion week last season, we broke that sacrosanct rule since the buyers were not coming here, and it gave designers the option to showcase for the domestic market.”
Further, Jaspreet Chandok, head of Lifestyle Businesses at RISE Worldwide, who has been leading Lakme Fashion Week for the last five years added, “Nothing much changes for us in terms of actual working, the team is the same, I remain the same. Our agreement with Lakme continues.”
He continued explaining, “We have put the power in the hands of the designers. We don’t want to define what works for the designers, or what they should do. As long as they are designers, the platform is open for you to communicate directly to the consumer or directly to the buyer. We are leaving it to designers to do what they feel is best for their business.”
Sethi commented, “I learnt a catchy phrase from America, ‘If it ain’t broke, why fix it.’ But I felt that the time for fixing is when the market is still struggling rather than when everything gets broken. I am a bit old school and I don’t like so many changes, but it is better to embrace change, to join hands and fight the present situation.”
With sales staying at less than 60 per cent as compared to last year stats, the markets have stayed low. Sethi mentioned that in the first few days of their partnership only, the benefits were clearly visible to both parties. He stated, “Shoots are happening in cooperation, we are learning from each other as well. The only added charge may be to encourage designers to go into an e-commerce base, at a little more than $100 to be part of the stock room where unsold inventory is offered on the last day of the event to which designers from both fashion weeks are invited to participate.”
Chandok said, “I would say there was a significant amount of competition in the decade before, but in the last five years that I have been here, I wouldn’t look at it is a clash of egos. We’ve had a cordial relationship, we have grown our fashion weeks, and taken them to new heights, independent of what was being done on the other side. I think one plus one will be equal to three. I can’t think of anything that seems like a compromise, at least from our end. All the partners including beauty brand Lakme have come forward with the intent of making it work, so that is half the battle won.”
