By Dolly Sagar What is fashion is a debatable question.
To you, it may be -looking hot and sexy is trendy.
Others may consider being elegant and classy as the ultimate fashion, Some feel that it is a matter of attitude.
Some feel that it is a sort of romancing the body and being able to look good and feel good.
But the main reason is that the majority feels that one should be able to stand out in a crowd and be noticed in a positive way.
As such the main task of the designers is to ensure that their outfits look different and are different.
often their creations may not be original, but with some imagination, sharp styling and still more desirable smart packaging, they can guarantee a new look.
The outcome of these efforts is a sort of 'version clothing".
This has resulted in some extreme designs - sort of sequined T shirts by Radhika Ravi and Krishna Sobhani, meant to be body hugging dress and worn as such.
This need to catch attention is also turning old conventional dress like churidar to a type of churidar pant, similar to leotard tights by Sanjeeva Reddy and salwars become hip cargo trousers, provided with patch pockets and mutliple zippers.
Embroideries like kantha and appliqu‚ over delicate block prints provide good contrast.
Some of the fashion designers like Kareena Rajpal have contemporized the Tibetan bakhu skirt into a sort of wrap sarong , to be worn with ( believe me or not) with Nepalese angarkah tops or blouses in bright red and orange.
To borrow from China and Japan, mandarin collars and kimono jackets fashioned out of rich brocade with broad waistbands gives the attire a distinct pan- asian look.
Designers working with soft silks with colours like burnt orange and burgundy make it a point to have a dash of orientalism, whether it be Thai or Indonesian or Chinese in their creations.
Incidentally the humble Indian lungi, especially favoured by Tamilandu and Kerala (known jocularly as 'cut straight and long') seems to have taken a reincarnation into sexy sarongs with rich hues of orange and fuschia and with tribal motifs printed from the Northeast India, especially from Manipur/Nagaland? Arunachal Pradesh.
One advantage is that the lungi turned into sarong can be worn with almost everything ranging from T- shirts/drapetops/waistcoats/wraptops.
Champa Singh's and Leena Shah's use this advantage to show quite a number of Indonesian motifs in their sarong creation.
But all these innovations have their exceptions also.
For example Chandrika Mathur's collection of dusty, cool pastel trousers and skirts teamed with light coloured brocade shirts and kurtas, are an example of so called 'soul dressing".
Incidentally the laidback lounge look has made a comeback.
Manoj Thakurta has described his lycra T shirts with Mughal prints, basically in jodhpur blues, as Classic chic.
You can place Rama Guha's digital prints inscribed T shirts and Bala Venkat's sequin decorated Maharani kurtas in the same category.
In Harish Vandana's much appreciated Khadi collection, the plain T shirt takes the form of off shoulder tops, the sleeveless vests take body hugging shapes, camisoles have smocked sleeves and the long knit cardigans are meant to go with tiered skirts.
Vandana explains that the idea is to create a feminine look/feel based on loose, limp unstructured clothing.
This is easily expressed in knitware with understated shades like ivory and off white.
Padma Thakur's classics take shape, as she re invents the classic Indian choli into a leather blouse, combining it with silk lehengas and zardosi covered shararas.
With delicate tonal embroidery decorated stoles the set is complete.
The same innovations mark when it comes to gent's wear.
Padma Thakur explains that today the Indian male is more eager to be adventurous than his forbears, as shown by the corduroy fabric sherwanis, bandgalas often in pure pristine white, decorated with elegant tone on tone d‚cor, so as to show out the embroidery and buttons.
Jagdish Aurora also takes the similar approach, but sticks to the camouflage combat look, so as to show the military chic designs with multiple zipper additions.
When it comes to military oriented designs, we have Chandra Sreshta, who has ensured that glitzy gold corsets are paired with olive green combat pants for ladies.
For the more adventurous types, we have Mrinalini Sen, who has made beautiful designs by combining capris with bright coloured velvet jerseys, balloon skirts over lycra pants and kimono blouses coupled with broad waist belts.
With capable genius like Ritu Kumar, the ordinary Indian petticoat has been transformed into crinkled peasant skirt.
Deepika Govind has made these petticoats more attractive by combining it with voluminous balloon skirts, while plain georgette pyjamas get transformed into tie 'n' dyed wrap over trousers.
Then again there are various forms of cargo trousers/low crotch harem pants, thus ensuring that the Indian designer ensures that you are cool!.
-(Maharaja Features)
