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.

While China may have the unyielding focus of many Western luxury brands today, many players are already beginning to set their sights on India for the next wave of expansion. But, as global luxury players begin to tentatively test these Indian waters, they are finding that India, which has its own vibrant indigenous cultural scene, may require a different expansion strategy altogether.

With Bollywood stars and local Cricket legends that get more attention in India than their Western cultural equivalents, there is no blank canvas in India upon which to paint Western tastes. Locals on the streets of Shanghai and Beijing have, by and large, adopted Western dress, but those in Delhi and Mumbai  are more likely to fuse East and West; a Tarun Tahiliani kameez paired with Seven for all Mankind jeans, Jimmy Choos and a Gucci bag or a Sabyasachi sari paired with Harry Winston jewels and Bottega Veneta minaudiere.

For international luxury brands, therefore, conquering the Indian market will require a lot more than a cut and paste — and, there is some formidable local talent to contend with.

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Sabyasachi showed his S/S 2008 collection in New York last night to a crowd mixed with New York City-based Indian socialites, important fashion journalists like Laird Borrelli-Persson of Style.com and Meredith Melling-Burke of Vogue, and other curious onlookers eager to see what the "Hermes of India" would come up with this season.

As Laird told me before the show after she had taken a quick pre-show sneak peek backstage, it was "classic Sabya".

He sent out rich Indian fabrics in a deep "revolutionary" colour palette of burnt orange, forest green and indian khaki, cut in classic (sometimes very voluminous) Western silhouettes. Revolutionary symbols from Russia, Cuba and elsewhere accented the clothes, which strummed along to Tracy Chapman and perhaps a deeper message of Sabyasachi’s plans of bringing a little bit of India to the global fashion.

(more photos below)

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There has been much talk of India’s increasing appetite for Luxury Goods due its rapidly growing upper and middle classes and on-fire economy spitting out growth at 8% per year. New millionaires, it seems, are born in India everyday. Usually, when people discuss how the fashion industry will serve these new customers, the conversation focuses on the Gucci’s, Prada’s and Chanel’s of the world and how they plan to conquer the Indian market.

However, anyone who has done business in India will know that navigating the the notoriously challenging Indian business world is not easy. In Indian fashion, it is even more challenging. Darwinian forces and age old Indian cultural patterns  collide with the already flaky and frenetic fashion world. This is, after all, the country where Majed Al Sabah’s putative Indian business partner in an initiative to develop an Indian outpost of Villa Moda left him at the proverbial alter and then went off to set up his own competing business under another name, using the Villa Moda concept. Clearly, understanding the nuances of how things really work in India and how to gain the trust of and commitment from Indian business people is critical to success.

This is partially why I think there should be much more discussion on which of the local Indian designers (and there are literally 100’s of them who show in Delhi and Mumbai each season) will conquer the Indian market. These are people who have lived and breathed India from the get go, and have the know-how and connections to make things work in their home country. Sure, most of the big European luxury players partner with illustrious local business families with fashion cred, but it seems to me that having an operation that understands the Indian market and designs specifically for it can be a very powerful way in which local Indian designers can compete with the big guys.

The truth is, the tradition of cultural dress in India is not relegated to formal events or occasions as it is in some other Asian countries.  In fact,  Indian men and women, even at the most elite socio-economic levels,  integrate traditional dress into their everyday lives. This is, on the one hand, a reflection of climate. On the other  hand, it is a reflection of a distinct pride in Indian culture. For designers who share in this pride, understand the culture, and can design for it, they can have a leg up on any foreigners who come to play on the feisty Indian fashion playground.

Tonight, one of my favourite Indian designers, Sabyasachi Mukherjee, invited me to an event in London showcasing the work of some of the most talented Indian designers. Held by the Gallery Sumukha at London’s Bombay Brasserie, the event brought together 30 artists from India who collaborated to produce thematically linked pieces of fashion, art and design.

Though the Bombay Brasserie space did not lend itself well to this kind of exhibition, it was very impressive to see the work of so many talented young artists from India all in one place. At a fashion show in New York a few season ago, a Japanese buyer from Isetan asked me if I was the "Hermes of India". When I looked at him with a blank face, not knowing what he meant, he went on to describe an Indian ingenue of great talent and noteriety. I soon figured out he was talking about Sabyasachi — so you can understand the level of talent that was assembled for the event. Manish Arora, Rohit Bal, and Rajesh Pratap Singh were some of the other Indian fashion luminaries who were working the crowd.  Right now, it seems many of them have their hearts set on conquering the Europe and America. It’s my hope that one of these guys also finds the inner passion to also make it in their home market, building the world’s first luxury brand in India, for India.
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Sabyasachi developed this look based on the painting to the left by Paresh Maity. It is reminiscent of the  nerd girl chic collection he showed to great reviews in New York last September.

Manish Arora’s contribution was a signature Manish skirt and jacket based on the stunning work of Ravinder Reddy.

We fell in love with these  old-school valises in modern colours by Suman Sharma, inspired by Bose Krishnamachari in collaboration with Rohit Bal.

© 2007 Copyright Imran Amed – The Business of Fashion