Politics of fashion

STYLE

Imagine this: It is 1998, you are sitting in your office when you receive a note printed on crisp, expensive paper from a senior official of the government inviting you to the "first ever" meeting of all Indian designers officially registered under the company act with the government.

And so happened the Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI), formed from this small initiative by a progressive IAS officer.

On a Sunday afternoon later that week, the "Indian" designers who believed that this body could actually come into existence and make a difference to small problems "" like fabric sourcing, production and having a common place to meet "" did meet and started the FDCI. Little did they know what they had created. In times to come it would become, in terms of its enormity of events, only second to cricket in India.

However, for now the nostalgic air of the tubelight-lit blue room in one of the large meeting rooms at NIFT in Delhi, where all this was conceived, lies silent in bereavement.

The current upheaval caused by the defection of corporate sponsors from India Fashion Week has been an eye-opener for the "Indian" press, the "Indian" community and, importantly, the "Indian" fashion designer. I might add that this is probably the first time that the fashion industry has had a taste of "going corporate".

So what stand is one to take on the future of "Indian" fashion? Well, if the designers were MLAs in a dirty political battle, manipulating and booth capturing their way to a party to rule the country at the Vidhan Sabha, then the answer would be clear "" but fortunately there is no battle.

Just a fork in the road, on one side of which the option is to reflect on betraying the effort one put into creating the BCCI of Fashion, the FDCI. On the other side, there is the guarantee of the corporate world to vigorously provide a new method, a new order.

It's all very different from the early years of fashion in India, when the orchestra of purring designers seemed to have lost their way in the anguish and depression arising from the intense competition and lack of opportunity.

When jealously ruled and animosity towards perceived rivals was but natural "" and brutal. This, as it turns out, is the quintessential moment of all times, a moment for the designers and the fashion service industry to put there heads together and reason.

Though conscious that in fashion, the absence of veracity or absolute contentment is close to impossible, the designers must recognise the need of the hour.

The self might not have so much relevance in the larger picture. An individual decision on the choice of placement at the X, Y or Z Fashion Week cannot be at the cost of the goodwill and the delicate maturity of the fashion industry.

Also, it might help to remind ourselves that designers don't design for fashion weeks; that fashion weeks are there to help raise money for the fashion industry; and the truth is that designers design really and only because they just love to.