Pallavi Jaikishen, one of India’s few and finest couturiers, on all that it takes to put together a fashion show that’s worth being at India Couture Week
The flurry at Pallavi Jaikishen’s opulent Peddar Road store, Paraphernalia, isn’t unjustified. Three assistants and three office boys are getting the invitations sorted, packaged and ready to be delivered. These will be sent out to only those who have been accepted the previously sent letter of intent (to attend the designer’s show), and have confirmed on the telephone thereafter.

The large pink bags contain a letter personally signed by the designer, a kilo of the finest Belgian chocolate in the country (Napolean, made by Jaikishen’s son Chetan’s company, priced at Rs 2,000 a pop) and a set of organdie placemats and napkins, with cutwork and self-embroidery (made by her other son Yogi’s export house, priced above Rs 1,600). If Rs 4,000 per invitation makes you cringe with impecuniousness, you haven’t heard of India Couture Week.

The country’s first couture week follows a decade after its first fashion week. It may be dipped in irony, since India is best known for her handiwork—elaborate embroideries, finely woven silks, gold threadwork—all the perquisites that our bountiful manual labour offers. But since ready-to-wear (or, as it’s fashionably called the world over, prêt-a-porter) was the order of the day in the USA and Europe, ready-to-wear it had to be for India too.

Finally, the Fashion Design Council of India roped in Mumbai socialite-cum-property magnate Sunny Dewan to spare a few crores on a three-year contract, and the HDIL India Couture Week was on its way. The celebration of ostentations began at the lawns of the Grand Hyatt, Mumbai, last Tuesday, September 16, amidst pouring rain and a dampener of an opening show by Ritu Kumar. It concludes tonight with shows by Manish Malhotra and Rohit Bal. Other participating designers include Tarun Tahiliani, JJ Valaya, Anamika Khanna, Varun Bahl, Manav Gangwani, Suneet Varma and Ashish Soni.

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