Future's present

The designs showcased at the GenNext show at Lakmé Fashion Week’s (LFW’s) Summer-Resort 2014 edition last week in Mumbai were mostly uninventive. Two of the six designers who debuted there had bursts of originality but given Indian fashion’s increasing aura, its “future” certainly needs a stronger creative sparkle.

An enduring idea initiated by former Lakmé CEO Anil Chopra, who retired after a long innings with Hindustan Unilever Ltd, the GenNext show is billed smartly as the “Future of Fashion”. Once an ignored afternoon show, it is a crowd-puller today. It evokes curiosity in purveyors of taste, in commentators who see fashion as a movement, and in senior designers who sit in front rows, some cheering the newcomers, others trying to read fashion’s future with knitted brows. This is where Sabyasachi, Rahul Mishra and Aneeth Arora took their first bows. This is where Indian fashion realized that it indeed had a future.

It is important to be an unconditional cheerleader of the GenNext show, argue the sentimentalists. It is unfair, they believe, to assess debutantes on the same scale as those with experience. It is also true that a debutante is just about hatching into an unsparing world coated with glitzy glamour as she figures out how to combine fit, finish, production logistics, marketing, commercial appeal and artsy value—a formula that unnerves even seasoned designers. But unconditional acclamation, for a senior or a debutante, is after all a reciprocal reaction—it cannot be delinked from performance.

Among the six at GenNext—Ujjawal Dubey, Vilvin Sabu, Chandni Mohan, Divya Sheth, Parul Bhargava and Sreejith Jeevan—it would be easy to identify Dubey and Jeevan as those who deserved big applause. Simply put, their fashion was original. While Dubey’s label Antar-Agni showed a distinct line of menswear inspired by the costumes of West Asia and the Far East, with not-so-exotic harem pants, asymmetric jackets, turbans and tunics in a rugged palette, Jeevan’s label Rouka had the pitter-patter energy of the Kerala monsoon. In dull grey, brown, white and black, Jeevan used patterns of raindrops, paper boats, umbrellas, bicycles and engines to create long tees, shirts, pleated pants and pretty dresses among other silhouettes, all on woven fabric.

None of the other four collections were particularly exceptional. As they came down the catwalk, there was a sense of déjà vu. The creations were not exactly copies of another designer’s work but they had unmistakable flashes of derivative fashion, weighing them down. Sabu’s silhouettes were sharp and her Chinese cutwork details interesting, for instance, but she needs to invest a lot to set herself apart, instead of looking like an also-ran. Similarly, Sheth might consider a rethink if she doesn’t want her work to remind spectators, in parts at least, of the indigo and shibori work already done by other designers.

It must be said that first collections are seldom conclusive evidence of whether a creatively fiery designer will back up his debut with consistency, a persevering translation of talent into commercial astuteness, meet the demands of fashion seasons, and be saleable. So this can neither foretell the assured rise of Jeevan and Dubey, nor that Sabu, Mohan, Sheth and Bhargava will pale. All we may have done is pick up clues, hoping they will lead us to a treasure in the future.

Which is why, the reasoning of Saket Dhankar, head of fashion at IMG Reliance, the company which mounts the LFW, makes sense. “Every season more than 200 designers apply for the GenNext show but if we can find and mentor even one designer who makes a mark, I think we have accomplished what we set out for,” he says.