Indian fashion designers should call their fraternity The Fight Club. It has been said before in this column that the very inception of the Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI) happened amidst intense internal wrangling. But ever since some designers walked out of the FDCI to set up the Fashion Foundation of India (FFI), the bitterness between the different factions came out in the open for all to see. There are reports that there might be another spilt. There are also rumours that there could be a patch-up between the three fashion bodies (for those who tuned in late, there is also a Fashion Design Promotion Council) sometime in the near future.
If the ongoing peace talks do succeed and the three bodies merge, it may, I am afraid, just be a Band-Aid and nothing more. The root cause of the fashion bodies splitting at the seams is the short-term vision that most key players work with in this industry. No one wants to, or has the gumption to, look beyond petty personal gains. Like Indian politicians, Indian designers only mouth platitudes about working for the industry. In reality, designers are driven by narrow (as narrow as the once-trendy skinny jeans) self-interest which is always at the cost of others.
The net result is that fashion has been unable to make any real progress either in growth terms or in terms of putting forward radical design ideas on the ramp. Indian fashion, as a result, is beginning to look stale and jaded. The energy of the industry is flagging, sucked out by this never-ending fight even while there are bigger battles that need to be fought and won. And a merger won’t put a stop to that fighting — for those who will hammer out the peace formula aren’t statesmen.
What the industry needs at the moment is a statesman. Someone who can stand tall among the men and women who feel squabbling is more important than the business of fashion. Someone who isn’t dictated by factions. Someone who isn’t driven by motives of milching the various fashion weeks for what they are worth, instead, who takes these weeks to new heights. Someone who is a visionary. Someone who has the guts to do things that will bring glory to all those designers who deserve recognition. Someone who can inspire rather than divide. Someone who isn’t morally and financially corrupt. Someone whose only goal isn’t to build up his own profile.
If that doesn’t happen, a hastily patched-up truce will only push the problems that the designers have with each other under the carpet, where, they will fester only to blow up again in everyone’s face at a later date. Let a leader, not a politician, rise from the debris of these different fashion bodies. That alone will lead to a permanent solution and keep this fractious bunch together. Otherwise, instead of organising fashion weeks, all these bodies could just become fight clubs with plenty of sound and fury but signifying nothing.
