The Uncensored Household
In a more unusual step, the grand finale of Amazon India Fashion Week included two designer brands: internationally acclaimed, Tarun Tahiliani and Amit Aggarwal who has a high profile in India.
The theme of the finale was ‘Fresh New Look’ as directed by event sponsor, Amazon. Tarun Tahiliani showcased new contemporary
Day two at Amazon India Fashion Week had beautiful array of designer collections but I wonder how many of them flock to warmer pastures during Winter. North India is bloody cold in Winter yet the South remains lovely and warm. Flimsy silks and bare legs show that only jet setters need to pay attention!
Design Duo, Hemant & Nandita’s collection was entitled Dynamism with a beautiful contrast of metallics and pastel shades:
Indian designer, Rimzim Dadu took a break from fashion shows for a couple of years to re-organise her company. One might think she went from a catwalk to a lab coat: she created a technically striking ‘Back to The Future’ collection that included some traditional Indian
The Hemant & Nandita brand and design duo are recognised for their strong prints and this collection played to their strengths. The outerwear was particularly strong and interestingly, finally relevant for an Indian Winter. I’ve been covering Indian fashion for many
Varun Bahl is a wonderful Indian couturier who was invited to do the coveted opening show for Amazon India Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2016 which also hailed his return to ready-to-wear.
The collection was entitled ‘Nocturne’ hailing the usual suspects of said inspiration. I really liked the bomber jackets and the styling
An indie flick from Pakistan has been wowing critics and I found myself part of a 300 strong crowd at its premier in London last week.
Manto is the kind of literary figure that my mum becomes glaze eyed about and she’ll suddenly recite passages and look at me with an air of pride at how, clearly, all artists in Urdu are superior to any other.
Manto was a controversial writer whose career spans the 40s and
I’m going to Delhi for a couple of months soon and one of the things I look forward to is a Saturday night drink and a bit of dancing at my favourite bar, Buzz! Buzz is the craziest and most amazing place not due to the decor, which is the average typical bar style, but due to the crowd it pulls and the music.
Buzz is in MGF Mall behind Select City Walk Mall and it will only get busy around 11pm. I’m quite lazy and lucky (a convenient
I wasn’t particularly wowed by the shows on the last 2 days at Amazon India Fashion Week in which one desperate designer even included a huge Lucky Strike cigarette packet on a T shirt. The best shows gave us romantic fashion in two very different yet beautiful ways.
Amazon India Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2016 in association with Maybelline is well under way and as usual, you can take a peak at the best shows here at The Chatterjis Blog!
Opening proceedings this season was top designer, Sanjay Garg and his brand Raw Mango. The show was dedicated to one fabric: mashru. Mashru was introduced to India by the Mughals it is a cotton and silk weave originally created to provide ‘halal’ fabric for menswear (silk for Muslim men is deemed haram, oh yes of course…). Production stopped in India in the 1940s inspiring Sanjay Garg and his company to re-instate the skill in Benaras. Now his hugely successful brand helps to keep the textile alive.
The designer’s vibrant colour palette and elaborate designs demonstrate the beauty and drape of the fabric. Repeat motifs and stripes are in step with the traditional origins of Mashru.
Bubbly
Former investment banker turned psychiatrist, Lucy Beresford will be at Asia House on 6th October (evening) discussing her book, Invisible Threads a fictional book drawing on the author’s experiences in India.
Although a fictional book, Lucy did a sabbatical at a clinic in Delhi and was introduced to women coming from desperate, violent
The truth can be elastic as it sometimes depends upon the perspective and knowledge of the person making the claim, however, Mr A S Dulat, formerly the head of India’s intelligence agency (Research & Analysis Wing) can perhaps claim to know the truth more than most of us. Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years by A S Dulat was launched in London last week at a lovely event at the Taj St James’ Court with guest of honour, Dr Farooq Abdullah (former Chief Minister of Kashmir, the Indian side).
It was a packed event with people standing at the back of the room. I had encouraged Mr Dulat to launch his book in London and as adorably humble as ever, he said ‘who would want to come to that?’ Loads of people was my reply! A couple of months later and there we were celebrating.
Kashmir is a well known and forever difficult subject for Indians and Pakistanis and often the
Poor Meera Syal, the expectations were so high from the audience around me and indeed myself that she would be incredibly sharp and witty and have us in stitches that once the discussion started and it became clear that it was all about surrogacy and motherhood (the main subjects her fictional book centres around) we were a little disappointed.
Of course Meera should want to promote her new book, The House of Hidden Mothers, at the Edinburgh International Book Festival there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m just not
It was just an ordinary evening one day in Delhi way back in 1997 when people went to their local cinema to catch the latest blockbuster. But ordinary soon turned into tragedy as a fire that started in the parking lot engulfed the cinema building itself.
Fire exits had been blocked and building safety norms were not followed by the owners of the cinema. As the fire struck, in the ensuing panic 59 men, women and children (some as young as 4 and 6 years old) lost their lives.
Eighteen years later and following an epic battle through the Indian legal system a verdict was passed by the Supreme Court that the
In 1914, 84% of the world was under colonial rule from a European nation. Quite an achievement considering that Europe makes approximately 8% of the world’s land mass. These were some of the attention-grabbing opening lines of economic historian, Philip T Hoffman’s event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
With this collection, Manish Malhotra celebrated 10 years of his couture house and 25 years as a costume designer for the Indian film industry. His Bollywood fan club was out in full support on the night, generations of stars and super stars sitting in front row, the paparazzi going wild.
As if these two fantastic milestones weren’t enough to celebrate, demonstrating that good things come in three’s, Manish Malhotra announced that two new flagship boutiques would open in 2016, one in London and the other in Dubai. Both world class shopping
Debarun Mukherjee’s couture collection embarked on a journey through Indian cinematic costume through the decades from the black and white days of the 1930s to the present time. Of course, little has changed in hundreds of years of traditional Indian fashion let alone a few decades. Colours and trims come in and out of fashion
Indian couturier, Manav Gangwani’s show was entitled ‘Le’amoureuse’ or the beloved in English. He really should have stuck with English as the French is grammatically incorrect and has, incidentally, been widely re-printed with the same error across other media. I know this is a fashion review not a French lesson but if you’re going to have pretensions, at least Google your French.
Back to the collection… The show was set in a floral garden with a long winding catwalk. An hour late, the audience had to wait longer
Rimple and Harpreet Narula, AICW 2015, Photography: FDCI‘Maharadja & Co’ was the title of the Preciosa (Czec crystals) sponsored glamorous couture show by Rimple and Harpreet Narula. Celebrating the days and glory of the Raj is the essence of Rimple and Harpreet Narula’s brand (although every Indian designer invariably cites the same inspiration).
Rimple and Harpreet have endeavored to capture the very beginnings of the concepts of bespoke and portraiture in India with
Anju Modi’s show notes included a poem by my favourite Sufi poet, Rumi so I was won over from the start:
I asked, “Where is your home, beautiful moon?”
She said, “In the wreck of your heart so stone.
I am the sun shining into your ruin.
Long may you call this wild wasteland your home”.
Inspired by Persia, the show was entitled Kashish: an Urdu word, reflects an attraction, a deep desire and yearning for something; something which maybe never was. Well English words don’t mean so much do they?
Calcutta based extraordinary couturier, Sabyasachi opened Amazon India Couture Week in glorious fashion. The designer’s trademark indulgent yet sophisticated designs and his meticulously details catwalk stage was inspired this season by India’s most common hunting bird, a ‘Bater’.
This season péro by Aneeth Arora lent her attention to military uniforms and the clothing and accessory items that have become staples over the decades, such as aviator sunglasses and khakis. She continued her exploration of Scottish checks (hand woven in the Himalaya region) and block printed textiles from Gujurat.
Melancholy show notes accompanied the press and buyers only presentation by Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khanna titled An Early Frost: ‘And some times the frost visits early. Not just in the temperature but in life and existence seem fragile and cruel…This special collection is together a lament and a celebration of a life.’
With a toe, or sewing needle, dipped in India and the other in Russia, JJ Valaya’s Bolshoi Bazaar collection was an ode to regal indulgence.
India is of course JJ’s True Love and each season the designer merges Indian cultural inspiration with a foreign heritage as long as
Celebrating 25 years as a designer, Kavita Bhartia showed a retrospective of her designs with a collection that cemented her place as a veteran designer. The collection wasn’t so much a celebration of her greatest hit as it was a big cheers to the future. Beautifully crafted in flattering silhouettes and tones, her Ogaan
There wasn’t an ode to the NHS and the London Olympics opening ceremony in Rajesh Prarap Singh’s accompanying show notes. This is surely the most eccentric grand opening of Indian Fashion Week that I have seen: a catwalk filled with hospital beds and drips together with a live band.
Rajesh Pratap Singh is known for his innovative outlook in fashion
Rohit Bal @ WIFW SS15
Rohit Bal @ WIFW SS15
Wow!
So much beauty, luxury, indulgence, fashion and history all in the most stunning historic Mughal ruins in one of Delhi’s top tourist sites, Rohit Bal raised the bar to tremendous heights for Indian fashion. Even the moon and the weather obeyed the designer’s ode to beauty. The moon shone brightly to the right of one of the tombs at Qutab Minar and the outdoor temperature dropped from Sweaty to Serene.
Rajesh Pratap Singh @ WIFWSS15
Day 3 at Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week featured a couple of unmissable designers, Rajesh Pratap Singh and Ashish N Soni. These brands consistently produce collections that would seamlessly fit in to a woman’s wardrobe anywhere in the world being both sophisticated, exceedingly wearable whilst maintaining traces of their Indian DNA.
Rajesh Pratap Singh @ WIFWSS15
Samant Chauhan @ WIFW SS15
Continuing his Rajputana theme this season designer, Samant Chauhan was inspired by romance and illusion and thus ‘dream’. Samant has a loyal band of followers and stockists sprawled across India and the Middle East and I’m sure they loved the intricate antique-look thread embroidery which is turning into a bit of a trend for next season.
The Chatterjis Blog 