New Delhi: Often the grand finale of a fashion week in India seems incomplete without a Bollywood star walking down the ramp. The issue, if the presence of a Bollywood celebrity hampers or helps a collection, has often been raised by designers and media alike and there are equal supports for both the camps. But all those who keenly observed the grand finale of the Amazon India Fashion Week autumn/winter 2015 would agree that it did not require any Bollywood star to be called a great show.
Disagreeing with the presence of Bollywood star as showstoppers, Wendell Rodericks, in a recent interview, had said if Bollywood is taking away the focus from the clothes, then it would be a loss for fashion. Designer Payal Singhal, on the other hand says that because of Bollywood endorsements the designers ends up selling more. And designer Manish Gupta was of the opinion that a Bollywood showstopper made sense only if they were the designer's client. He went on to say that if the designs were not up to the mark, no star could save them.
25 of India's greatest designers, among them two Padma Shri awardees (Ritu Kumar and Wendell Rodericks), who have shaped Indian fashion as we know it today, showed their creations and then walked the ramp as a voice announced "ladies and gentlemen welcome the stars of tonight", this was more than enough to move any fashion connoisseur to tears.
To top off the experiences, Rohit Bal while taking a bow at the end, walked down the ramp and broke into his particular kind of dance. That to a fashion industry insider, who has grown up watching his shows on TV and read about him in the news, was a near heaven experience.
The grand finale of the 25 edition of the AIFW opened with a performance by a band of Manganiars who sang Sufi music and the classic Rajasthani welcome song 'padharo mhare desh'. That enchanting performance gave way to the final show. From the first creation to the last received applause from some section of the hall, if not all of it, as the beautiful models showed them off.
With designers like Anju Modi, Gaurav Gupta, JJ Valaya, Pankaj and Nidhi, Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khanna, Suneet Varma, Tarun Tahiliani and Raghavendra Rathore, in this coming together of beauty, talent, creativity and grace, Bollywood seemed far off and almost politely snubbed. The show ended preaching, perhaps, a lesson that fashion weeks should only be about the designers, their creations and their lovers.
Comments
0 comment