Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week
Wills India Fashion Week in New Delhi has successfully ended in a hotter style for spring summer. It has all the glamor and glitz that London, Paris and New York fashion weeks demand. More than 70 fashion designers from all over the country participated in Fashion Week showing their collections worn by 40 models. Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week Spring-Summer Showcase is another FDCI ‘first’ serving as a platform to promote ‘The Business of Fashion’ and facilitate interaction between designers and buyers in India and internationally.
This is the first time since its inception six years ago that Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week has been presented in an international format to cover the two seasonal market segments: Autumn-Winter and Spring-Summer. As a result, nearly 75 of India’s top designers were able to present their Spring-Summer Ready and Diffusion collections to the biggest names among Indian and international buyers, media and fashion lovers. Clearly established as ‘Fashion’s Greatest Celebration’, Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week attracted buyers and media from around the world. The event has served as a launch pad for some of the participating designers, who have sold with great success through retail chains around the world such as Be, Shoppers’ Stop, Kimaya, Pantaloon, Selfridges, Browns, Maria Luisa, Tsum, Harrods and many more. .
On the opening day of the event, Arjun Rampal made a cameo appearance at the Rohit Bal show. The first day of WLIFW featured collections from Manish Arora, Rohit Gandhi-Rahul Khanna, Jatin Kochhar and Rohit Bal. Jattin Kochhar’s collection titled ‘Swell Well’ is dedicated to the millions of moms-to-be in India and abroad. While her creations for the average lady were basic in terms of color, silhouettes and style, she incorporated a sprinkling of menswear and swimwear for both genders, aiming to provide a complete and ready solution.
Rohit Bal made a full turn to Nacre – Mother of Pearl with a touch of sparkle. Known for his application of brilliant texture and tonal embroideries with basket weave event technique in fine thread work with pleats, pleats, layers, Rohit unleashed a line of stunning long coats, full skirts, textured ruffle jackets, long skirts and skinny, glamorous dresses, skinny dresses dressed all topped with jackets, caftans, boleros, boleros. It was the ultimate Hollywood glam or should we say the Bollywood kind that went down the ramp for womenswear.
Designers Swapan and Seema swept the WLIFW ramp with the Madame Butterfly collection for Spring/Summer 2007, where there was a mix of East and West in their creative palettes. A wrap shirt, knee-length pleated skirt with side slits, an ivory-tone embroidered mini skirt, and a pale blue jumpsuit with a ruched bodice completed the western segment. Known for their luxurious saris and bridal wear, the couple did not disappoint.
Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week grand finale featured Bollywood fashion Badshah, Manish Malhotra presenting his best creativity for spring-summer 2007. Sensuality was the name of the collection and Manish had his favorite muse, Urmila Mantondkar, opening the parade with a beige dress. worn corset with a long shiny hipster skirt. From swim bikinis to bathing suits and ornately embroidered covers, Manish had them all. It was a mixture of colors that Manish worked with from beige, nude, white, red, blue, red, pink, green to combinations of all. The highlight of the show was the appearance of Bollywood superstars, Shahid Kapur in an elegant suit and Kareena Kapoor in a spectacular black fishnet dress.
The Ashish Soni Spring-Summer 2007 collection, inspired by Nokia’s Sirocco model, moved into the future with its incredible deconstructed garments and black, white and gray melange color tones. Volume played an important role for Ashish as she opened the show in a white veil embroidered with metallic pins for a multi-shirred baby doll dress. The extra wide silhouette not only worked well for garments, but was also visible for sleeves, boleros, and skirts. The collection thrived with garment details with rolled sleeves, random pleats, stencil-sprayed details, and ruching for skirts and boleros that gave garments a new dimension.
Menswear is Ashish’s forte and his jackets were simple offerings in fresh wool. A black satin collar tuxedo jacket, a double collar single button jacket and a black chino collar Nehru jacket are pretty special. Fabrics ranged from voile, viscose, silk taffeta, jacquard, canvas to fresh wool.
With WIFW 2006, FDCI is carrying forward its vision of using this event as a platform for the overall development of the fashion design industry and the fashion business. As part of this objective, a series of new initiatives have been launched, which have been very well received. FDCI has been steadily expanding the scope of the event to increase participation from key stakeholders since the event began in 2000.