It’s ironic, but the people who create fashion are the ones who no longer can afford it. I have said this before and I say this again: there isn’t a single fashion designer in this country who has achieved the Rs 100 crore turnover figure as yet. But the number of fashion weeks have grown exponentially in the last 10 years, ever since the FDCI was created. Even after the still-born rebel bodies FFI and FDPC have now ceased to function, just the number of fashion weeks that designers participate in are staggering.
There is the bi-annual event, Wills India Fashion Week. There is now the yearly Men’s Fashion Week. There is also the Cotoure Week that happens once a year. Indian fashion designers like Manish Arora also particpate in the Paris Fashion Week. Each fashion week participation requires tremendous financial investment, especially if you go abroad. The monies involved for, say, a New York or a Paris Fashion Week are so substantial that talented and worthy designers like Rajesh Pratap Singh and Anamika Khanna have not repeated showings in these important markets.
Most designers run one-man shows or mom-and-pop outfits. Therefore, these designers just do not have the rigour and manpower that is required to design, source, manufacture and finally produce a runway show. An Indian fashion designer is everything from the creative head to the communications head to the chief merchandiser to the chief marketing person to even the peon of his outfit. Designers are reporting burnout, or even an inability to keep up with the frentic cycle that has become the norm.
By organising so many new events, FDCI has done its members a big favour. As these often fractious members struggle to keep up with just the basics, this may give them the jolt that they require to reorganise and re-orient their businesses. This burnout may make them understand that fashion is a business like any other. And if lasting brands have to be created, then there is no other way to do it than bringing in professionalism and money into it.
And any sensible investor or professional will not wilfully run the very business that is giving them a profitable return into the ground. The fear of losing control of their business is a bogey and it’s high time that the designers opened their eyes to this fact. As David Giampaolo of Pi Capital said to me recently, “The principle of making money is the same in every business.” To that I would add the addendum, “The principle of losing money is the same in every business.”
Overcoming fears (which are just swirls of undefined thoughts in one’s mind) is the biggest favour that the designers will do to themselves. The reward of doing that outweigh the risks. Business is all about a series of calculated risks. The next 10 years will see India grow rapidly. If Indian designers don’t take the risks that are essential for them to scale up to a respectable size, they would have lost the opportunity of a lifetime.