Fashion week to be bi-annual event

The India Fashion Week will be held twice a year from next year, once each in Delhi and Mumbai, the Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI) said here today.

This year's event will be held from April 20-26, in which 61 designers including Monisha Jaisingh and Varun Bahl will take part.

The seven-day event will include 39 shows, display at 70 exhibition halls and an interactive panel discussion.

"The Lakme India Fashion Week attracted about 200 companies from both domestic and international markets last year. Though a major chunk of buyers were domestic, there was a 100 per cent increase in the number of international companies which participated from the US, France, the UK, Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan,'" Rathi Vinay Jha, director-general, FDCI, said.

Though there is no formal compilation of the amount of business that the fashion week generates for Indian designers, according to the industry estimates, last year's fashion week resulted in orders worth Rs 75 lakh for about 10 top designers. Retail chains in West Asia are learnt to have expressed interest in sourcing fashion garments from India.

Designers are also looking at increasing export opportunities with the quotas opening up. "Till now, we were using only expensive fabrics like silk, but now we are open to other fabrics like cotton," said Payal Jain, fashion designer.

According to her, a large number of retail stores are looking at the mid-priced segment, which the Indian designers should be able to cash in on.

This year's event is being managed by IMG with Lakme as the title sponsor. Samsung mobiles are the associate sponsors with six other co-sponsors.

"Lakme India Fashion Week has served as a platform for us to unveil our fashion statements, which serve as a reference point for the fashion and beauty industry," Anil Chopra, vice-president Lakme Lever, said.

"We are involved with LIFW for the third time and we have gained from it considerably, especially because this becomes a fashion-cum-media event,"said Anupam Bansal, director, Liberty group.