Fashion Weak

An appeal to fashion weeks!

September marks the beginning of the fashion season. It’s an exciting time as new collections enter stores and new fashion weeks herald a gamut of new trends. But this September, I am neither excited about fashion nor looking forward to any of the fashion weeks in India.

The reason? The word “Fashion Week” has been abused. There is Lakme, Wills, Kolkata, Van Heusen, HDIL , Pearl Infrastructure, and did someone mention a Jaipur Fashion Week? We probably have about half a dozen designers of note in India, so where is the content to fill these fashion weeks?

With Lakme starting this week, I am struggling to find one day where I actually want to see all the shows. Which is probably why designers resort to using Bollywood on the ramp—it is a pretty mask to cover the lack of actual fashion on the ramp and a short cut to media coverage.

Every season, the quality of fashion at these Indian weeks just seem to get more and more diluted as ever newer fashion weeks keep springing up. And as a member of the fashion press, I find it hard to divide quality coverage over all the new fashion weeks. As a magazine, the team needs to work its schedule around each fashion event, and we also need to allocate budgets, hire photographers, and spend time attending the event. The situation, after a while, will become impossible to handle.

So here is my small but earnest appeal to the fashion industry—if you want people to take the fashion seriously, come together and do ONE important fashion week. Focus on quality fashion rather than PR stunts. Basically, bring the fashion back to fashion week!