The Daily Indian

The season of flounce and loose shapes is over, with power dressing making a comeback. Women’s autumn and winter wear this year will be all about immaculate cuts, silhouettes and tight fits, especially around the waist. Fits that accentuate the contours of the body, clinched waistlines and flared hemlines with contrasting drapes stood out as one of the major trends at the just concluded Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week (WIFW) here.

Designers said the trend was a carryover from the last season, which made an emphatic statement for the autumn-winter couture this time. “The last season – the spring-summer line — was characterized by flounces, though the gradual shift to tighter contours was apparent. This season, the look was definitely fitted and draped,” designer Pratima Pandey, a NIFT graduate, told. Pandey’s Bohemian theme, ‘Fashion Ghetto’, at the WIFW was inspired by the movie, Slumdog Millionaire. The young designer experimented with a combination of the ancient Japanese tie-and-dye technique of Shibori, bagru print from Rajasthan and the traditional ‘dhagai’ (thread) work on her clothes.

She used the resilient Bhagalpur silk to create stiff, hugging silhouettes. “After watching Slumdog Millionaire , I wanted to translate the darkest area of life into a beautiful pret line. I started with black, the most negative of shades, and moved on the positive hues of blue, grey and green,” she explained.

The apparel line was a blend of fitted blazers, jackets, tops, skirts and dresses. The traditional Indian woman with broader torsos played on the minds of designers this season. With the global apparel retail industry reeling from the impact of a fluctuating economy, the target audience was closer home.

And the fits had to make the cut with the conservative Indian woman, conscious of her flab, explained designers at the fashion week which ended Sunday. “My credo is wearable and Indian. I have fitted the upper part of the bodies of ensemble to enhance the figure. My clothes were more about fabrics and cuts than about textiles and embroidery. Fashion always changes and hence I tried to keep my line more everyday than one-off,” Delhi-based designer Shyam Narayan Prasad, an NIFT graduate, told IANS. He used the Benaras brocade, self-jacquard silks, short georgettes and heavy crepe for the dresses and slim line jackets that could either be worn as standalone Western style evening wear or as formal tops with lowers, leggings, tights and denims. Designers did not want to risk losing money this season with new looks and excess frills, divulged Jaipur-based designer Aruna Singh, who worked with Satya Paul earlier. “The fitted trend from last year continued this year. Last season, the waistline was camouflaged, but this season, India has drawn heavily from the tight fits and trim waistlines on the global ramp,” said Singh.

The designer’s elaborate line of fuchsia and baby pink ‘anarkali’ tunics in silk and khadi – a Mughal era top with pleated hemlines and embroidered bodices — has lost its baggy look.

“It used to be a shapeless garment originally, for the Mughals did not like their women to show off their shapes. I have evolved it into elegant silhouettes with tighter cuts around the waist and fitted embroidered busts. The ‘kalis’ (pleats) have been joined below the waist. I have also shortened their lengths,” she explained.

The original anarkali has a mass of voluminous pleats – a baggy top — that fell well below the knees, almost touching the ankles. They were usually matched with Indian-style churidars and salwars.

Delhi-based designer Samant Chauhan, a native of Bihar, who flaunted an organic line of heavily textured and draped dresses in cream Bhagalpur silk, said structured fits were the ramp highlights both in India and abroad.

“I have experimented with long and tight churidar sleeves and modified the anarkali -dresses with less flounce and pleats to fit the broader Indian women. The Indian market is finally ready to accept structured clothes,” he told Reporters .

It’s time for India to get in step with the world and ring in a new era in fashion

Anu Gulmohar

Ever begun the day on a really dull note and felt much better once you got all dolled up for the day? Dressing up can be loads of fun and from ties to skirts to little matching trinkets, many of us take a lot of care in looking just right. For many, looking good makes them feel good too, though if you keep up with the times and switch to ethical fashion, we guarantee you will feel good every single day. Ethical fashion is all about clothes and accessories that are made without harming the environment, animals and bettering the lives of the workers/artisans/craftsmen.

Among the most stunning options to get some good karma and pampering yourself are the eco-friendly diamonds, which were brought into India by Renaissance Diamonds last month. Laboratory grown, these diamonds match up to mined diamonds in brilliance and have the identical physical, chemical and optical properties. The difference is that they are cheaper, and as they’re made in labs, there are no environmental or social costs involved. This has got to be great news for all who swore off diamonds after watching the violation of human rights and the child soldiers being born with every passing day, in Martin Scorsese’s Blood Diamond. Neil Koppel, President and CEO of Renaissance Diamonds, says, “Eco-friendly diamonds are an alternative for someone who wants to buy a diamond that is socially and politically responsible. Now, we plan to make our diamonds available to the existing and emerging market in India through our sales office in the Opera Building in Mumbai.”

Another unique initiative was undertaken by the NGO Conserve which has been turning waste plastic bags into trendy bags, wallets and footwear and giving work to the women from the slums. They’ve found plenty of demand for their products in Europe and it’s growing in US too. Says President of Conserve, Anita Ahuja, “In Asia, we still haven’t yet caught on with ethical fashion. One of the reasons could be that we don’t see much nature around us. We see a lot of garbage and concrete. We have seen so much of poverty that we’ve become insensitive towards it. That is why in Asia we don’t see that kind of movement coming along.”

This year’s Wills India Fashion Week in Delhi saw designers going for natural fabrics – Samant Chauhan worked with natural silk and recycled junk jewellery; Ekta Jaipuria combined organic knits with Vanya silks. The first Indian designer to launch an eco-friendly line was Anita Dhongre who used eco-friendly fabrics and techniques for Grassroot — her collection which was launched at last year’s Wills India Fashion Week. “Along with eating healthy food, consumers are becoming aware of the clothes they wear. Being exposed to pollutants in many aspects of life, choosing organic fibres is another step towards natural living, both for ourselves, as well as our environment. Thus, the faster consumers adapt to a healthy lifestyle, they’ll adapt to eco-friendly fashion at the same speed,” says Anita. Come September and she will take her new eco-friendly collection to Paris for the Paris Fashion Week.

If you’re against harming the environment and allowing farmers to die (because of the use of pesticides in cotton farming) so that you can stay cool in summers in your Ts, switch to organic cotton today; or to fabrics made from soy, or hemp, or bamboo, or milk! Umpteen options are there for all; ready to bring about the long-awaited revolution?

Madhusree Chatterjee

Hair holds a face like frames in a painting. Chosen correctly, the frame can complement the painting. In the same way, an appropriate hair style can bring out the hidden personality of your face, says a new book.

“The Essence of Hair”, a Di Wills series publication, was launched by the ITC at the Wills India Fashion Week Saturday. The book was unveiled by actress Deepika Padukone.

“I think these days anything goes. The attitude is carefree and so is the hair,” writes stylist Sapna Bhavnani in the book. She runs a salon, Mad O Wot.
Bob is back in new funky styles like in asymmetrical lines and angled bangs, she feels.
The current rage, however, is Hollywood actresss Scarlett Johansson’s “soft sexy curls and the out-of-the bed tousled look”, Bhavnani says.

A hair care dossier, the book traces the history of hair types, styles, changes, trends and problems related to hair; and suggests way to ensure that the tresses remain healthy and lustrous as life hurtles along the jet-set lane.

“The shape of the face is most important while selecting a hair style. The other two considerations are hair type and textures,” Sapna Bhavnani writes in the book.
Hair styles have interesting historical anecdotes. European women in the 15th century, says the book, tweezed off the entire hairline at the crown and forehead to achieve the haute hair look. High foreheads were in fashion then, along with blonde hair.
Dark-haired beauties used saffron and onion skins to get a bleached look.

During Queen Elizabeth’s rule, auburn hair was a rage and girls sported red wigs. It was replaced by more elaborate powdered ringlet wigs during the reign of King Charles 1.

Some adventurous Englishmen opted for tall styles by starching their hair so that they stood straight on their ends. The Victorian age was marked by severe and neat hairstyles, whereas the early 20th century brought the “free spirit” bob cuts and the riotous curls, the book said.

The mid-20th century and the subsequent decades also saw the page-boy cut. The book classifies hair into four types – oily, dry, normal and grey. While oily hair calls for cut down on oily or fatty foods and a mild shampoo, dry hair needs hot oil conditioning and an intensive moisturizing shampoo.

Normal hair, says the book, requires pH balanced shampoos and grey hair has to be camouflaged with a semi-permanent tint and natural treatments.

Ambika Pillai, a Delhi-based stylist, recommends castor oil massages to stem hair loss. “Castor oil is known for cleansing out your system. People are known to apply it on eye lashes and hair. A hot castor oil massage helps conditioning the scalp and de-toxing,” she writes in the book.

Award-winning stylist Adhuna says a regular haircut or trim every four to six weeks helps keep the hair in maintaining good shape and prevents the ends from splitting.
According to the book, the causes for hair loss are numerous. They vary from hormonal imbalances, allergic reactions, to high fever and poor diet. Very often, stress is seen to be the main cause for hair loss. Therefore, the best person to advise on issues relating to hair loss is the doctor, the dossier prescribes.

“However, Indian women should always have straight long hair because it is much easier to style long tresses than shorter strands which stand out. Long black hair is back in fashion,” designer Rohit Gandhi told IANS, soon after the book was launched at the overflowing ITC’s Fiama Di Willis salon at the WIFW.

The crowd jostled for a peek at Deepika Padukone, who said she liked to keep her hair simple, black and long.

Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI) president Sunil Sethi, however, voted in favour of headgears.

“Headgears are the latest – the kind of woolly look that stylist Shilpa created for the Manish Arora show,” Sethi told IANS at the venue.

Power dressing is back Hadley Freeman hails its return

I remember very clearly what I wore for my first day at my first job, seven years ago: a pale lavender vest top, a bias-cut knee-length skirt with an unfortunate paisley print, and a pair of lilac kitten heels. This was topped with a cotton jacket from Gap, which my mother bought for me especially for the occasion, praising its “usefulness”. It did not occur to either of us to buy anything approaching a power suit. My attempt to look more grown up than I was, in those days, consisted of matching my plastic shoes to my vest top.
For nigh on 20 years, power dressing has been little more than an embarrassing memory from the ’80s — a decade not poor in retrospective humiliations. Those matching skirt suits, those jackets with shoulder pads (shoulder pads!), all that red. As tends to be the way in fashion, the women’s version was much worse than the men’s in the ’80s. For men, power dressing pretty much began and ended with buff blue or black suits; the ladies, on the other hand, had lumpy jackets and belt-like miniskirts and something called “pantyhose”. Power dressing, surely, was one ’80s revival that could never happen? Oh, ye of little faith! In the latest European collections, designers have resurrected power dressing with the enthusiasm of Melanie Griffith in Working Girl.

In the Yves Saint Laurent collection for next season, creative director Stefano Pilati has pushed aside last season’s peasant look in favour of matching trouser suits and blazers. The blazers are slightly looser than the starchy ones of yore, but blazers they definitely are, in all their shoulder-padded and double-breasted glory. At Christian Dior, models stomped angrily down the runway in head-to-toe matching skirt suits, waists nipped smartly inwards, shoulders pointing imperiously upwards. Stella McCartney has combined what some might think are the worst of both worlds: the loose and sloppy styles of the past decade with the bulking up of the ’80s, resulting in oversized shoulder-padded cardigans.

Even Marc Jacobs, the man who coined grunge in the early ’90s – a look that arguably dethroned power dressing the first time round — has knocked out a collection that would not look entirely out of place in a glass-walled office block: smart trousers (the word “slacks” comes unstoppably to mind) are worn with matching jackets; skirts and trousers are all high-waisted — no sloppy slipping down to the hips here – and hems hit the very formal point of the mid-calf. Considering his role as creator of the template that the entire high street copies, it will be interesting to see how retailers knock out these trouser suits at a low price, or whether they will even want to, considering that trouser suits are not really the kind of thing to inspire queues of hysterical teenagers to snake round the block. And maybe, in Jacobs’ case, that is partly the point: now that the high street’s copies are so good that they verge on plagiarism, one way for designers to stay ahead – aside from litigation – is to make clothes that are just too darn grown up to knock out on the cheap.

Even aside from all the designer backing, it was, rather delightfully, announced recently that US Vogue cover star Sienna Miller is considering starring in Oliver Stone’s biopic of the life of that ultimate icon of power dressing, Margaret Thatcher. One need only think back to Miller’s power at getting women to adopt saggy suede skirts and floppy hats two years ago, as well as this season’s ’60s smocks, to comprehend her strange power over the wardrobes of women around the world, and foresee a return to stiff blue jacket-and-skirt combos.

According to Pilati, these ’80s styles make women look “at the same time more feminine and more powerful”. Ah yes, the old “powerful women” chestnut. But surely if these women really were so powerful, they would not feel the need to bulk themselves up with padding and bossy brass buttons.
Psychologist Jenny Summerfield says it was a yearning to look more authoritative that was behind power dressing the first time around. “In the late ’70s and early ’80s, there were more women in the workplace…pushing against the glass ceiling. But they didn’t have quite the confidence that women have today and fashion very cleverly picked up on that and made clothes to help women feel more equal.
The shoulder pads, the aggressive colour red, the big jewellery — it was all about being noticed and making a statement.” So is she surprised by its resurgence? “I am, because I think women are more comfortable with themselves and at work than they have ever been, so I wouldn’t have thought that they’d need to make that kind of statement again.”

Roland Mouret — who, one could argue, initiated this return to more formal dressing in the past few years with his much-copied Galaxy dress — says that, on the contrary, women are reacting against politics, and not making a political statement themselves. “There’s so much political unrest that people want to feel in control. That’s why they’re returning to a more grown-up style.” Well, perhaps — although, personally, I have yet to meet a woman whose reaction to reading the news is to buy a belted jacket. Whenever fashion writers or designers say that a trend is a “reaction against” whatever went before, what they usually mean is that, in order to get customers to spend money, they need to promote a look that is wholly different from anything seen in recent seasons.
But what is certainly true is that ever since the early ’90s, women have been dressing less and less formally in all contexts, perhaps as an embarrassed reaction against the blowsiness of power dressing. The bar for informality seems to fall lower with every year so that one now sees jeans, scuffed-up Converse trainers and empire-line tops that make women look like they are due in two months’ time wafting around in most offices. And maybe it was just time for a change before we started going to work in our bathrobes.

“I think people are simply getting sick of this dressing down at work and they’ve realised that spaghetti-strap peasant tops don’t look good on anyone except Sienna Miller,” says Gaia Geddes, executive fashion editor of Britain’s Harper’s Bazaar. “I mean, you can’t work hard in flip flops.”

He’s the creator of all the leading fashion shows in the country and has taken India to the world in that respect… Meet the man — Sumeet Nair, who feels that much needs to be done yet for Indian fashion… Angshuman Paul meets up with the fashion wizard

What’s common between Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week (WIFW), Lakme India Fashion Week, Couture Week and Delhi Fashion Week? Of course, they all had something to do with fashion and India, but is there something beyond than what meets the common eye here? Well, yes! Apart from being the country’s leading fashion shows, these shows were all the brain-children of Summet Nair. He is the founder and ex-Chairperson of Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI), which he started way back in the year 1998 to beckon global buyers with Indian haute couture. Cut to October 2008 and Delhi just stood witness to two extravagant fashion weeks. So are these events successful in actually promoting India fashion and generating hefty revenues (considering the huge investments made by various sponsors)? Summet Nair, currently the MD of Fashion Foundation of India (FFI) in a conversation with 4Ps B&M discusses the backstage drama, the front stage adrenaline rush in the business of fashion events and India’s position in the global fashion arena.

Of late we have started seeing many fashion week events. Do you think that we actually need so many of them?
Compared to global fashion weeks, India is still lagging far behind in this perspective, and there’re many things that need improvements. So, if we are improving with every new fashion week, there’s no harm in us having one…

But considering the great amount of investments made by organisers in such events, do the returns justify the time and money spent by the organisers?
Earlier it was difficult to generate good returns, but now things are changing for the better. Also, on the other hand, it is important for the organiser to be more focussed on generating good returns from such events. The funding for these events come from membership and designer participation fees. The return can also be generated from sponsorship and through sale of media rights. Like in 2006, WIFW really generated good surplus and it was because we were able to bring good media along with good sponsors. So if you are focussed, you can actually create great surplus for the organisers!

That was from the point of view of the organisers. But what about ROI for the designers from the various fashion shows?
For instance, consider the Delhi Fashion Week. To set up a minimum stall, which comprises of 8 square metre, the designer needs to pay Rs.80,000, which also provides him/her an opportunity to be a part of the fashion show. Apart from this investment, he also incurs other expenses of Rs.50,000. Therefore in total, the designer ends up with a total expenditure figure of Rs.1.5 lakh. Now, consider the flipside where he would organise a solo show — the designer would end up paying anywhere between Rs.16-20 lakh. So by taking part in a mega-event, they save a huge amount of their investments, and with the same amount of money they would spend in a solo show, they can participate in about 11-12 mega-shows. To talk about returns, many designers in the latest fashion event earned anywhere between Rs 50 lakh to Rs.2.5 crore!

Tell us about your initial experiences, like forming of FDCI and organising event like the Lakme India Fashion Week.
I had just completed my studies abroad and had come to India. I found that unlike many European nations, in India there’s no strong guild amongst the designers. So I thought of creating a platform where all designers could participate in and promote the industry in an organised fashion. That was when we created FDCI. It was not easy to bring all the designers together under one roof and that was our first hurdle when we started our first fashion show — Lakme India Fashion Week.

Wasn’t it also difficult to get a brand like Lakme (from HUL’s stable) as the key sponsor?
No, not exactly. Lakme at that point in time needed to promote itself big time, as a fashionable brand and India Fashion Week fitted the bill perfectly. Hence the name became Lakme India Fashion Week. But it was really difficult to get a good event management company. In fact, it was just the day before the fashion week, that we tied up with Images as our event manager.

Are Indian fashion shows successful in beckoning global buyers?
Oh yes, the response is fabulous. Specially, we are getting good response from countries like France, Germany, Middle East, UK and Spain. Globally, fashion buyers can be segregated into three categories — Boutiques, Superior Departmental Store and Sales agents and in all these three segments, India is generating good buyer crowd. Like in the Delhi Fashion Week , there were 165 buyers which included names like Dar-Usha (boutique category), Isetan (departmental store in Japan) and MC2 (biggest sales agent in Paris).

Compared to global designers, don’t you think Indian designers have missed out big time in creating a brand?
See, compared to the fashion industry in Europe, Indian fashion industry is relatively very new. Over there, the industry is more structured with well trained people to assist the designers in all possible ways — be it in promoting a brand or in creating a sales invoice. But here the designer has to take care of everything. The designer might be an extremely talented person in terms of designing, but he/she might not be good at handling media or public relations. So these minor issues matter a lot when it comes to creating a brand. What more do you want to do with with FFI? I wand to address all issues that are preventing the Indian fashion industry from becoming more structured and organised. In fact, we have already started educating many designers with small professional codes like preparing order form etc. We need to change the pattern we are following in the Indian fashion industry.

Real women respond more favorably to a brand if its adverts mirror their own identities, an ongoing survey which canvassed the opinions of 2,000 women in the UK, US, China, India, Canada, Brazil, Kenya and Jordan revealed. The study challenges the advertising world’s perennial reliance on young, white and extremely thin models.

However, advertisers cannot simply enlist a few fuller-figured models, says Ben Barry, who is carrying out the research at Cambridge University’s Judge Business School: “In general, people have a more favourable reaction to brands that show models who represent people’s age, size and background.

“It’s not necessarily enough to show one component which is similar – people really wanted to see someone who represents them in all three factors.” To reach the conclusion, Barry commissioned advertising agencies to produce a number of realistic print campaigns for products, including consumer and luxury goods, report the Guardian.co.uk Half were made using what the study termed “traditionally attractive models” – aged 16 to 24, white and around US size zero, the equivalent of a UK size four. While the remaining pictures included “realistically attractive models” of a range of ages, races and shapes.

Aside from women aged under 25 and Chinese consumers, most of those surveyed felt positive towards the brands that used the more diverse models, the study found. The study quotes the reaction of one 50-plus participant to a mocked-up ad for a luxury product using a very youthful model: “It’s a slap in the face to show this young woman because she’d never have the money to shop there whereas I do.”

My Style: Personally, I just like wearing a pair of trousers, tee and my watch. I tie my hair up and I’m set.

‘The’ Accessory: Most of the time I end up wearing a watch and no other accessory. I make sure that I have a watch for every occasion, with every outfit and every colour.

Make-up: I like to let my skin be and let it breathe. My normal make-up regime is pretty simple as on an everyday basis I don’t like wearing make-up.

On the days I’m working, I make sure that I take it off as soon as I’m done with the shoot. I don’t let it stay on for too long.

Fitness: I don’t work out, a lot of people don’t believe me! I’ve been a sportsperson and I have age on my side. But I think I should start soon.

‘Fav’ Designers: There’s always Manish Malhotra who did my first film for me and he’s fabulous with stage clothes. As for a grand evening he does some fantastic clothes.

I’m extremely fond of Tarun Tahiliani, then there is Shantanu & Nikhil, Gauri and Nainika…but then again designers keep changing their styles season to season.

(Source: NDTV Goodtimes)

Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra inaugurated her parents’ cosmetic-surgery clinic Studio Aesthetique here and said that it will provide world-class treatments to its clients.

The studio, a dream project for the Chopras, especially for Priyanka’s parents Ashok and Madhu, claims to be a one-stop cosmetic-surgery clinic with the most sophisticated surgery equipment.

“It’s a very proud moment for me. A lot of hard work, time, resources, in-depth research and months of training have gone into ensuring that this studio provides world-class treatments and services to its clients,” Priyanka said at the launch Thursday.

“My parents have worked very hard to make this a reality and I’m confident that it will be a huge success. I wish them all the luck,” she added.

Also present at the inauguration were other celebrities like choreographer-director Farah Khan, director Vishal Bharadwaj and designer Neeta Lulla.

The studio, which is located in Juhu, has services ranging from skin care, laser treatments, liposuctions, breast augmentation and other relevant treatments on offer.

The consultant team at the centre would comprise specialists including two plastic surgeons, one general surgeon, two part time cosmetologists, one in-house cosmetologist and two nutritionists.

Priyanka’s father, a doctor himself, will be the consultant general surgeon and lend his expertise by performing procedures like lip plumping, facial rejuvenation, smart liposuction and ultra liposuction.

Speaking on the occasion, Priyanka’s mother Madhu said: “Our aim is to provide world class services and procedures with the best in the business in a calm and relaxed environment.”

Fear that the ugly looking wrinkles on the face can rip off your attractiveness quotient? Well, then you need a reality check, for men are more Wrinkles don’t make women less attractive to men (Getty Images) likely to get attracted to older-looking faces, according to a science journalist.

In her fascinating new book, ” Do Gentlemen Really Prefer Blondes ?” American science journalist Jena Pincott collates scores of academic studies, to say that wrinkles do not make a woman appear less attractive to the opposite sex.

In scientific tests, men were asked who they saw as a potential partner for a short-term relationship. As it turned out, they gave low attractiveness ratings to older-looking faces.

That, according to the researchers, is because men are biased towards youthful-looking women with childbearing years ahead, which prompts them to marry younger women. But, ironically, if a man’s mother was over 30 when he was born, he tended to be more tolerant of ageing in women’s faces in the context of a long-term relationship.

It was only the mother’s age at his birth, not the father’s, which influenced a man’s acceptance of older looking women’s faces. According to the researchers, such a tendency owes itself to sexual imprinting, the tendency for a person to seek a mate who resembles his or her opposite-sex parent.

American actress and model Sienna Miller who faced a backlash from her female fans after she began dating married actor Balthazar Getty has hit back at her detractors and said she doesn’t understand women.

“I have been at war, without a doubt. I have really experienced the judgement of women in the past year. It’s women who are holding us back. It’s women who are judging. I find it sad. We say we want to be on an equal path… but there is no sisterhood,” Miller said, reports chinadaily.com.

“Historically, women always get the short end of the stick. I do not understand why women turn on each other instead of offering support,” she added.