Its India’s biggest fashion event and it certainly means business. The Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week has once again brought together a vibrant mix of designers (141, the highest ever!) to showcase to around 200 buyers from across the world.
77 designers are showing on the runway and this includes a lot of young talent, quite fresh to the glamour of a runway show and new to the business of fashion. They are high on creativity and enthusiasm but like any entrepreneur, setting the foundation of their business isn’t an easy task.
So in this piece we try to help them, through the advice of seasoned designers who are also smart businessmen. What is it they can do to not just get clicked but also set the cash registers ringing?
Let’s begin with what’s most exciting for an emerging talent- their clothes on the run way!
As important as it is to make a statement, it is even more important to show your creations to the BUYER. For that Rahul Khanna, from the designer duo of Rohit-Rahul says “Editing out your pieces for the show is important. You don’t have to pick ALL the pieces you’ve created. Showcase the best and remember to establish a relationship between the first piece on the catwalk to the last one.”
Rahul also suggests that line sheets and a note on the collection must be handed over to buyers before the show. These help the buyer in identifying what they like and the gesture shows you are serious about the business.
Designer Anupama Dayal feels that most emerging talents go wrong with the silhouettes they present on the ramp. “Few women are a size zero. No woman wants to wear tight, look-at-my-body clothes. Make the practical side of life glamorous. Design has to be functional.”
True that. What a buyer wants is clothes regular people with a sense of style will buy. And if you want to cater to a larger market, it’s important to show silhouettes that are not discouraging.
Both Anupama and Rahul feel that young designers need to think through their collections before they actually start putting them in production.
For instance if pret is your focus, Rahul says “decide the price points and then work backwards… which means think before going all out with applique or embellishments because that means your cost will shoot up.”
Anupama cites an interesting example. “My favourite colour is white. But do you see a lot of white in my clothes?” … Her point is that before starting production you need to know what will last through the process of mass production...Quality control is extremely important if you want a buyer to come back to you with business.
It may seem like a challenge to adapt your creativity to the demands of the market. But as you discover your own signature style and build on it, it becomes easier to identify your niche. So as an emerging designer, while you must enjoy the compliments and the adulation, remember that the ones who really last in the industry, are the ones who hone their entrepreneurial skills as much as they nourish their creativity.
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