With the main Fashion Week coming up, the question of the Fashion Weeks surfaces once again -- a fashion in itself, it seems!

Stepping out with style

With the main Fashion Week coming up, the question of the Fashion Weeks surfaces once againu00a0-- a fashion in itself, it seems! Between the traditional one that started in Mumbai over a decade ago, and all the newer ones, the biggest today is an offspring of the first one that started off this year. We have a dozen of fashion weeks in India now without mentioning the special shows some designers hold to launch their new collections and vice versa. Many corporates that need to look fashionable ask designers to stage a show to launch a new car or watch of theirs.

The actual business of fashion being in its teething years, fashion consciousness itself is in the same state having a battle with tradition as one can follow on the silver screen all over the nation.

This is probably what explains the still omnipresent attitude towards fashion in which the sponsoring corporate gains more visibility and at a purely advertorial level definitely can translate an event into a (commercial) product. The designer rarely has a setup actually permitting him to do so.

The possibility of brand building in a general corporate event even if highlighting fashion is compromised for the designer when the space for signature or (often in India non-existing) designer logos is taken up by the many sponsors.

Due to a still widely unstructured market, retailers are often unwilling to place a confirmed order, which leads to designers to produce and work on consignment thus keeping their often shaky structures, because the scope of business rarely exceeds two to three months. Unlike western markets where ordered and programmed merchandise is sold to a target client, a cycle that is of six to seven months.

Thankfully, many of our new talents have at least learned about these things in fashion school. It is these newcomers who will hopefully be tomorrow's new names while some of our super talents continue their trajectory dreaming of an established market rather than having to cope with establishing it. Our older talents should learn from the young ones in regards to such aspects. Let's hope this edition will bring us further!

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