Bandana Tewari | Photo: Johan Sandberg for Industrie Magazine

PARIS, France — Bandana Tewari has made a name for herself as one of the fashion industry’s smartest commentators. As fashion features director of Vogue India, she has quickly become the go-to source for anyone who wants to learn about the country’s rapidly evolving luxury market. Recently, she was named to Industrie magazine’s Fashion Media A-list, alongside other leading fashion commentators including Cathy Horyn, Tim Blanks and Suzy Menkes.

So, I am delighted to reveal that Bandana Tewari will pen a regular column for The Business of Fashion, offering her unique perspective on the Indian luxury market, starting with this interview originally conducted for Industrie.

I sat down with Bandana in between shows during Paris Fashion Week in September to talk about India’s fast growing fashion market, tailoring luxury products to Indian sensibilities, the power of Bollywood and wearing Tarun Tahiliani saris with Manolo Blahniks.

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Front Row at Lakmé Fashion Week | Photo: BoF

MUMBAI, India – From the minute I landed in Bombay—as everyone here still calls it—the rapidly shifting nature of contemporary India was apparent. Instead of waiting in agonisingly long queues at the airport, I breezed through immigration, customs and bag collection in only 45 minutes. That’s faster than one can make it through most terminals at Heathrow or JFK these days.

Outside the airport, cranes building a new terminal towered over those waiting with signs to pick up arriving international passengers with names like Padamsee and Singh, but also Takahashi and Levine, signs of the globalisation that is quickly transforming this city into an international melting pot.

The last time I attended a fashion week in India was five years ago, so when IMG kindly invited me to attend this season’s Lakmé Fashion Week, I was curious to see how things had changed. With GDP growth racing along at a blistering 8 percent per year, and a growing sense of national pride, there were bound to be changes in India’s fashion business landscape as well.

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Giambattista Valli Store, Paris | Source: Giambattista Valli

Giambattista Valli: “True Luxury Is When Others Come To You” (Style.com)
“There’s something about Giambattista Valli’s clothes that is so fundamentally optimistic, they’ve got you at hello,” said Style.com’s Tim Blanks—and last week, the designer opened his first Paris boutique, in the centuries-old Galerie de la Madeleine.”

Diane Von Furstenberg and China: A Perfect Fit? (NY Times)
“Today, there are roughly three dozen DVF boutiques worldwide, and she’s extending her reach into China, with shops in Beijing and Shanghai…’I came for the first time in 1990. And I’ve always had this fantasy. I’d like to sell every Chinese a T-shirt.’”

When friendship and fashion equal success (Financial Times)
“When launching Gilt Groupe, an online shopping site that currently has 3m members, the co-founders did not trouble to write a traditional business plan. Instead Alexis Maybank, 35 and Alexandra Wilkis Wilson, 33, took what they had learnt from Harvard Business School and bypassed the formality.”

EBay to Buy Germany’s Brands4friends (Bloomberg)
“EBay Inc., the largest e-commerce marketplace, agreed to buy brands4friends, Germany’s biggest online shopping club, to increase fashion sales in Europe.”

Seamless Sabya (Deccan Herald)
“His clothes are an extension of his personality — they’re cheery, colourful and above all, exude a strong sense of Indianness. With his mantra being ‘clothes are just extensions of one’s intellect’, B-town’s favourite designer, Sabyasachi Mukherjee has proved his mettle in the business of fashion.”

Behind the scenes at Wills India Fashion Week, courtesy of PR Pundit

This week on The Business of Fashion we welcome several guest contributors to give us the scoop on recent fashion weeks, the IHT conference and local market trends in India. We’re calling it our own India Fashion Week, but as you’ll see, that might be the last thing India needs.

NEW DELHI, India — Bollywood, Cricket and Fashion. Everyday these three topics bring to life the popular culture pages of India’s leading national newspapers, The Times of India and Hindustan Times. And of this colourful ménage à trois, fashion is the relative newcomer, but is growing fast.

In the last year alone, the local scene has exploded to include three major prêt-a-porter fashion weeks, a bridal couture week, a regional fashion week in Kolkata, a proposed men’s fashion week and enough corporate sponsors to power each one. Multi-brand fashion boutiques and über-luxe malls featuring international brands have also recently opened. Local fashion media has reached critical mass, with Harper’s Bazaar, which launched an Indian edition last month, Vogue India, and countless other magazines all aimed at India’s it-bag aspiring middle classes.

But, let’s start at the very beginning, to see how it all began.

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Fashion needs to change (Emirates Business 24-7)
One of BoF’s favourite Indian designers, Sabyasachi Mukherjee, lays out his approach for the future of the fashion business.

A Modern Take on Iceland’s Traditional Hand-Knit Look (WSJ)
The Icelandic sweater is a source of inspiration for many contemporary designers in Reykjavik’s thriving fashion scene.

Block Party (WWD)
This fall, Karl Lagerfeld is set to launch Kapsule, a unisex collection of three scents that can be mixed and matched.

What Happens in Vegas: $9 Billion Mega Project Ups the Ante on Luxury (WWD)
In Vegas, the $9 Billion City Center project, slated to open next year has signed a strong roster of luxury brands including Louis Vuitton and Tiffany & Co.

Soaring online sales defy credit crunch (Drapers)
In the UK, online shoppers spent £26.5 billion in the first six months this year.

Sabyasachi Mukherjee designs, photo courtesy of Sabyasachi Couture.