Who is bigger — the celebrity flourishing the label or the client buying it? Every hardnosed designer knows the former is just a gorgeous means to the latter. But at the four fashion weeks in the country this year — the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week (WIFW), the Lakme Fashion Week (LFW), the India Couture Week and the Kolkata Fashion Week (KFW) — showstoppers and A-listers on the front rows grabbed more attention than potential clients. At the fifth, the Bangalore Fashion Week, it was neither. Chaos was literally the showstopper. “There was complete mismanagement, and the organisers were clueless about most things,” recall designers Parvesh and Jai.

Since 2001 when India first said hello to them, fashion weeks have undergone a huge change. Until the economic slowdown, the interest among foreign buyers, including those of niche boutiques like Maria Luisa and MC2, was on the nascent industry here. The reason was the appeal of designers such as Tarun Tahiliani, Rohit Bal, Anamika Khanna, Sabyasachi Mukherjee and Ashish Soni. The financial crisis, however, means less purchasing power for the buying houses. So, it is the domestic industry that is conducting bulk business.

At the recent WIFW, there were 110 designers on board. But of the 175 registered buyers in what is supposedly one of the biggest fashion trade events in the country, 100 were domestic. “The international market is being cautious at the moment, and it is going to be this way for a while now. Besides, it’s too late for them to buy anyway, since the week was held rather late this year,” says Kevin Nigli of the label Abraham and Thakore. “On the other hand, the purchasing power of the domestic market is still solvent. So that’s where the business is.” Abraham and Thakore registered a 6 per cent increase in domestic sales at WIFW as compared to last year.

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