Delhi designer Ritesh Kumar to represent India at the Japan Fashion Week

For Delhi-based designer Ritesh Kumar, futurism has a whole new connotation. “I have often wondered why every time we talk of futuristic design, we can only come up with exaggerated assumptions, like people in spacesuits. The world is increasingly moving towards being more technologically enhanced, so I feel the future of design lies in man-made solutions,” says the 28-year-old alumnus of National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT). Accordingly, Kumar’s spring-summer collection 2010, called Sensawunda (or sense of wonder) involved elements like pipe rings, acrylic and vinyl rings, blended in as collars or button holes or, sometimes, as chic surface embellishments on extremely wearable and trendy ensembles.

It was probably this quality of innovation that wowed Atsuo Nakagawa, the chairman of the Asian Designers’ Collection 2010 committee, when he visited Delhi last month. Nakagawa was in town to select one young Indian designer to showcase at the Japan Fashion Week in March as part of the emerging young Asian designers’ show. The five shortlisted candidates included city designers Varun Sardana, Alpana and Neeraj, Samant Chauhan and Varun Bahl, but it was probably Kumar’s conceptual designs, which swung the decision in his favour. Last year designer Nitin Bal Chauhan had showcased at what was the inaugural emerging Asian designers’ show.

Even though Kumar is yet to finalise his collection for his upcoming show on March 22, he is clear that it’s going to be an extension of the one he showcased at the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week last month. “The stress in Japan is on menswear, but my collection will be based on the same philosophy as here. The silhouettes will be crisp and body-hugging and the look, contemporary,” says the designer, who has worked as a design consultant with brands like Ermanno Daelli, Chimento and Parasuco in Italy and House of Valaya and Esprit De Corp in India, after a course in Milan’s prestigious fashion school, Domus Academy.