Fashion Week Musings, mk. I

Having two fashion weeks happen within about two weeks of each other in the same country might be more than a bit confusing, but I reckon it's good to have more output, not to mention more showing opportunities- especially for young talent. And if one of them, on a whole, turns out to look a bit boring, there's always the other waiting to restore my faith in the future of fashion design in this country. That said, Lakme India Fashion Week (so called to distinguish it from Wills India Fashion Week, which gets held in Delhi- see what I mean about confusing?) this time around has definitely had its standout collections, which I'm going to run mini-posts about in the next week. And the first of these is (drumroll, please):

1. Sabyasachi Mukherjee

This should come as no surprise, really, given my previous assertions of fangirlism for his clothes, but I'm madly in love with the outfit right on top already- the man really does have a knack for getting his presentations right, and gives it all a quality very few Indian designers manage to put across in their clothes- coolness. (the trouble with a lot of clothes made by Indian designers is that they're far too precious- the embroidery, handmadeness and sheer volumes of fabric have, in the past, left me feeling like these aren't really clothes to, say, sit cross-legged on the floor in. I can't say the same of Sabyasachi designs, though- they're as beautifully made as one could possibly want, but the sheer casualness of the styling makes it very easy to imagine these clothes in my life some day (I wish!)). Even if I'm in a bit of a neutrals phase right now, the colours are actually mildly soothing (and it's not as if he can't do clothes without colour. After doing a wildly splashy patchwork-featuring show for his India Fashion Week debut in 2002, his next collection was entirely in shades of white, and it was stunning because everyone else had jumped on the colour bandwagon by then).

And one can't help but love the panache and sexiness (albeit of the non-obvious kind) of the way he mixes it all up- it might be mildly eccentric to some people, but it's an eccentricity that seems entirely natural, and which I could definitely do with- beginning with the models' hairdos (stuck all over with flowers and random things- too bad there weren't any detail shots available), to the layering, to the mixes of prints, all the way down to the clotheslines strung full of clothes and fairy lights above the runway (Rediff said they were "creating the pretty ambience of a modest home in the French countryside.". To which I say: French countryside my foot, every house in India has one or more of them on the balcony- what's wrong with just saying that?). But seriously, they're so pretty..

PS: Getting the pictures together for this post was something of a job, since the only shots of complete collections online seem to be on a pay-to-see website. I honestly can't see why people need to act so pricey about pictures- if Copenhagen and Tokyo Fashion Weeks can put out pictures and videos of shows on their official sites, why can't the same be done here?

Images from the International Herald Tribune, indiwo, bharattextiles.com, and Rediff.