"The fashion design council of India has become very Delhi-centric now and it is harder for people from Bombay to work with them."
Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla
(On the delhi 'domination' of fashion) "It is sad that to be the best one must party, be seen everywhere and not be very creative."
Wendell Rodricks
"We're one happy family. There is no rift...this (Outlook's) list is a subjective one and if this is someone's opinion, it is fine by me."
Tarun Tahiliani
"You see,Delhi doesn't have Bollywood stars.... so,designers have become stars themselves; no one knows where their clothes sell."
Pallavi Jaikishen
(On those who got ranked) "This (the outlook top ten) looks like a list of the shows at the Lakme India Fashion Week."
Vikram Phadnis
(On the anonymity of outsiders) "I could do anything here; become really successful, but it really doesn't matter. No one will notice."
Manoviraj Khosla
"Is it April Fool's Day?" Not a few people in the Indian fashion business claimed to be wondering thus after Outlook recently published its list of the country's best designers (Birds of Plume, September 20). The list of 14 chosen by a jury had only three non-Delhi designers.
Indians do conspiracy theory very well, and the fashion business is no exception. Surely there was some dark plot to do in designers from outside the capital. Is it any wonder that pretty much 60 per cent of the members of the Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI), the fashion industry's representative body from within whose ranks the list was drawn up, come from just one city, Delhi.
Delhi does have a remarkable number of designers, but is the FDCI really representative with such a make-up? Matters may, in fact, become worse with its announcement of Delhi as a permanent venue for Fashion Week.
Tarun Tahiliani may have had his tongue firmly in cheek when he said, "We are all one happy family; there is no rift between any of us. This list is subjective and if this is someone's opinion, it's fine by me."
Others, like Bollywood designer Vikram Phadnis, were more scathing: "This looks like a list of the shows at Fashion Week."
Abu Jani, one half of Mumbai-based designers Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla, will point out that "FDCI is a very Delhi-centric body now and it's harder for people from Bombay to work with them. Design students and young designers need a platform but it's hard for them to go to Delhi."
Naturally, would-be designers in and around Delhi have no such problem since they are already there. It does not hurt that the National Institute of Fashion Technology, the country's best-known fashion school, is also Delhi-based; this adds to the number of Delhi designers.
Fashion may also be a serious business, but there's no getting away from its trademarks of outre behaviour (by middle-class Indian standards, at least) and pretty, if rail-thin, women with endless legs and tiny clothes. That's a mix tailor-made for selling newspapers and magazines, so expectedly Delhi media has developed a glamour obsession that's turned the city's designers into Page Three stars.
Pallavi Jaikishen, one of the best-known Bombay-based designers, snipes, "Delhi doesn't have Bollywood stars so the designers have become stars themselves. But with some, no one knows where their clothes sell and no one has seen anyone wearing their clothes".
The gifted Goa-based Wendell Rodricks, who industry-watchers say is a big miss on the list, agrees designers outside Delhi are less in the media: "It's sad that to be the best one must party, be seen everywhere and not be very creative."
Non-Delhi designers also don't show as often.Pallavi Jaikishen had a fashion show last week, after four years, while Abu-Sandeep have not had one in more than four years and Priyadarshini Rao shows only at Fashion Week.Meanwhile, Shahab Durazi is probably the most media-shy designer in the industry.
Further, beneath the hype lies a very compelling and commercial reason for being based in Delhi. It's called the Big Fat North Indian Wedding. While no one has audited figures, some of the biggest names in fashion make as much as 85 per cent of their income from trousseaus. It helps of course that the typical Punjabi wedding is more elaborate than other Indian weddings, with more functions—which require different outfits, naturally. And a winter wedding season allows designers far more freedom with layers, fabric and styles, something that's hard to manage in any other metro.
Punjabi wedding baroque does actually seem to inform Delhi's fashion buying taste in any case. As veteran fashion columnist Meher Castellino says, "In the Bombay market, pret and avant garde clothes sell along with traditional clothes, but Delhi tends to be more rooted in traditional, trousseau clothes."
These are precisely the clothes designers generate the maximum sustainable income on, as their demand is relatively inelastic. "Trousseau wear is the more profitable part of the business. You never think twice before buying wedding clothes," says Priti Kumar, event director, Marwar Mega Wedding Show. The trousseau market's growing by more than 20 per cent every year, she says.
Meanwhile, however creative other designers may be, commerce alone can maintain Delhi's importance in the fashion trade. And media hype will only make it harder for anyone else to be noticed. As Bangalore-based designer Manoviraj Khosla says, "I could do anything here; become really successful, but it really does not matter. No one will ever notice."
Commerce is critical, of course, but it would hurt Indian fashion if Delhi-centrism were to discourage the next Sabyasachi Mukherjee or Wendell Rodricks.
Interestingly, though more than two-thirds of FDCI members are from Delhi, 50 per cent of Outlook's jury for the rankings were from the west, not from Delhi.
