After Chennai and Bangalore,its now the turn of Jaipur to experience a heady dose of style and glamour with the Blenders Pride Jaipur International Fashion Week in Septemer. And since the city is associated with luxury,princely riches and exotic palaces,the theme for the four-day week from September 15-19 at the Hotel Clarks Amer,Jaipur,has been fittingly kept as royal. While top names like Rohit Bal,Ritu Kumar,Ashish Soni and Anamika Khanna are missing from the list,the event will showcase collections by 30 designers including Ashima-Leena,Satya Paul,Nikki Mahajan,Charu Parashar,Mona-Pali,who will be rubbing shoulders with three international designers from Sri Lanka,Mauritius and Dubai. We are looking to explore virgin territories in fashion and activate a hunger for fashion and style in those places, says Gaurav Sharma,CEO,Storm Fashion Company,the main organiser of the event. A year-old venture,Sharmas company was responsible for organising the prevous two fashion weeks in Chennai and is further on its way to having similar fashion weeks in Ludhiana and Hyderabad by the end of the year. We have been constantly searching for destinations whose fashion potential has been unexplored but have the basics needed to host a fashion week. Jaipur as a city has the right balance of culture,royalty,luxury and above all,it is a viable business opportunity,so we settled for this location, adds Sharma. Apart from the established names,there will be five new and 10 emerging designers who will be showcasing their collections. Those with less than three years of experience will fall in the new category. While the fashion week in Chennai did not throw open exceptional business opportunities,designers participating in Jaipur are hopeful that they will have a good response from the local market. Designer duo Rahul and Gunjan of the brand Sirali,therefore,are attempting a repackacking of Rajasthan through their collection. We are using traditional fabrics like kota dorya and gajji to create our ensemble which will comprise saris,achkans,Sherwanis and evening dresses, says Rahul Jain,who happens to hail from Jaipur. Rajasthan is a desert area and we want to showcase the colour and craft of the place in contemporary fashion, adds Jain. The two will have actor Anjana Sukhani walking the ramp at their show. Meanwhile Leena Singh of Ashima-Leena who will be showcasing their collection at the Grand Finale,will be looking to appease her clients in Jaipur through this show. A lot of the citys royalty are our client. So our collection will have a lot of inlay work,jewellery motifs and antique brocades. The show will be a gesture of gratitude to them, she says. Despite the promise of dedicated buyer spaces and wider customer interface,there are some designers who are sceptical about the success of the event. Sunil Sethi,FDCI President,offers a rather critical opinion about such fashion weeks. There are too many fashion weeks sprouting up. The organisers had approached us to associate themselves with FDCI but our calendar is packed for the season. However,the good thing about so many fashion weeks is the fact that they are creating fashion consciousness, he says. Kolkata-based designer Mona Lamba of Mona-Pali is quite apprehensive about her show. This is the first time we will have a show in Jaipur. Though we have clients from the city,I am not sure about the response to the fashion week, she says. Mona-Pali will showcase their bridal collection at the event.
