Beyond Bollywood, is Indian fashion going global?

By Suzy Menkes

MUMBAI: With voluptuous bodies and a sultry glamour, the models looked like a mirror image of the front row movie stars. Flamboyant dresses held together with crystal straps seemed destined for Mumbai's cinematic royalty. By the time the designer Manish Malhotra took his bow surrounded by slicked males and sensual women, the finale could have been a poster on a Mumbai billboard. But this red carpet moment was only one act in Lakme Fashion Week. For Indian fashion is aiming to go beyond Bollywood and on to the global stage. This vibrant city, its spirit caught between the energy of New York and laidback Los Angeles, is determined to establish itself as India's hot and hip fashion capital. It may be competing with Delhi, the country's political epicenter, which held its own fashion week earlier this month, but the Lakme show (named for the beauty giant that is the main sponsor) is showcasing fresh talents. That included the Gen Next show on Monday, when eight designers showed imaginative work, with a focus on pleating and layering, and all with detailed craftsmanship that would be rare to find at sophomore level in Western countries. Mumbai - unlike Delhi, with its glossy new shopping malls - is also creating a retail structure of individualistic stores to support Indian talent. Strung across the city, off the central marine drive known as the "Queen's necklace," these boutiques, with discerning taste and vision, are digesting Indian fashion and serving it up in a contemporary way. It is the dream of Sangita Sinh Kathiwada, founder of Melange, with its eclectic mix of Indian textures, to bring the burgeoning modern art, movie and music culture together as part of the fashion scene, or as she puts it: "to get the sense of tradition, India's independent filmmakers, cinema people, the art world and the craft world." For Priya Tanna, editor of Vogue India, which launched last year, fashion week in Mumbai is as a mere infant with powerful potential for growth. For India itself, the question is how and in which direction fashion will grow. Should the subcontinent play down its own profound culture to aim creatively at the western markets? Or should it look inward and feed its home market for intrinsically Indian clothes, often destined for weddings and with a resonance to other countries with a similar aesthetic such as Dubai (where Malhotra has a store)? Or could India ultimately become the hub of a new pan-Asian fashion movement setting a 21st-century fashion aesthetic? These are big questions that cannot be answered by fledgling or even established designers, although the diversity of vision makes for intriguing shows, presented in a streamlined way under the auspices of IMG, the seasoned fashion week planners. Sonam Dubal used the sound of flowing water and images of the rivers of Tibet as his version of the elegantly ethnic. This show, with its floral prints, graphic stripes and brick-work of color, was the antithesis of the flamboyant film star look and had both dignity in the silhouettes and subtle craftsmanship like embroidered flowers with tufted centers. Kiran Uttam Ghosh showed her roots in Calcutta as she captured a sartorial spirit with her soft palette and intriguing mixes of texture. The soundtrack intoned "There are two of us," to refer to the central concept of two materials melding in a single garment or of filmy florals juxtaposed with ribbed knitting. The show just intimated at the powdery stones of colonial heritage. Drawing on India's tradition of bird motifs, Krishna Mehta incorporated parrots and peacocks into her graceful collection of flowing, embellished dresses where details like puffed sleeves were subtly integrated. But Mehta probably spoke a metaphor for Indian designers when she said: "one side of me wants to fly, the other to come back home." The Melange's store mix of tactile offerings shows what can be done with the textiles that Kathiwada calls "our unique strength - we are an intensely sensual people." Echoing the stone floor and brick arches of the former wine cellar, effects included crushed traditional pleats, dip-dye techniques for modernized flower prints and updated work in the white-on-white chikan embroidery. At Bombay Electric, the cutting-edge store in Mumbai that has a contemporary vibe, Priya Kishore develops ideas with designers, citing a successful collaboration with Sonam Dabal rather than buying directly off the runway. Using her own eye, taste and character and working with her husband Deepak Rajegowda, the store melds historic tribal jewels, modern woven shawls and light-as-air interpretations of traditional pieces, all of which could be a template for new millennium of Indian style. "Subversive retail," says Maithili Ahluwalia to describe Bungalow 8, her lifestyle store built under a Mumbai cricket stadium. From its antique lamps, "longing to be loved," through carved wooden windows abstracted as modern décor, to table linens and clothing, the byword is "texturation." All the pieces are Indian, 30 percent are antiques and 70 percent done "with my direction," bringing eclecticism to a sophisticated level. "I am not a formally trained designer - I try to put things together," says Ahluwalia, who is following the artistic fingertips of her mother, whose bold gold jewelry has a sculptural and tactile style. But Bungalow 8's owner hesitates to claim that there is a renaissance of style in the country and says that "contemporary" is a relative word. "It's a difficult time in India - it's all happening too quickly," Ahluwalia says. The changes in society, with a 10 percent annual growth rate, is creating an expanding national market for an enlarged middle class. India's taste makers at the top create clothes and objects palatable to a western consumer, but the elaborate and ostentatious wedding world is a local affair. Yet those magnificent saris, glitzy with jeweled embroidery and adaptations of the Salwar Kameez tunic and pants also find a market overseas. Tanna at Vogue talks about the enormous diaspora of 22 million Indians, while Tina Tahiliani-Parikh of the long-established Ensemble store says that a sizeable part of the embellished wedding clothing is bought by nonresident Indians, patriotically returning to their native country. Weddings require outfits for five days, mostly "cocktail saris," according to Vogue, which will launch a special celebration issue each November to encompass the festival of Diwali and the wedding season. "India is a culture - there is a huge tradition of dressing for occasions," says Tahiliani. "People come back here to shop from Hong Kong, Jakarta, Africa, Europe. And a wedding is for the whole family. I am a great fan of Indian textiles and craft, I am taking what I think is our heritage, including a lot of draping. But I don't think we can compete with Italy in cutting a jacket." Draped dresses and tunics are showing up strongly at the Lakme show, but Tahiliani, although "glad for the industry" that got it together thinks that "fashion week is still not about the business of fashion. "As a nation, fashion is so young, it is only in this the last decade - the rules of the game are getting established," says Tahiliani. "And most of the nation is taken up with Bollywood." Vogue says that a sari worn by a star in a movie can be an instant best seller, which is probably why several Mumbai designers have their roots in costume. Yet the red carpet events that European designers are trying to penetrate or the clothes that stars wear don't have the same nationwide resonance. Fashion beyond Bollywood does not yet have the same power to seduce off screen. The Courtyard, S.P. Center, 41/44 Minoo Desai Marg, Colaba, Mumbai