NIFTy show of designs, but little sheen

TWO SHOWS and a weekend. One clear message - models found wanting. The first show, had the best out of the NIFT stable this year, at `Design Collection 2K', only that the horses weren't made for the courses. Nothing wrong with the young designers, for creativity and innovation, were the trademark of their creations. If only, the models had carried them off, on Friday.The men however, were stunningly good. Be it Hargurjit Singh Kapoor's collection or Gaurav Sinha's `Eibadut' sequence, the models oozed attitude and style that jelled well with the clothes they sported.Incidentally, Basha took home the trophy for the `Most Creative Collection'. His internship with JJ Valaya did pay off, finally. ``This collection dates back to the dada art movement when people came together and decided that art has been giving only aesthetics and it is high time that art reflects a state of mind and the state of mind need not always be logical,'' he says.

For Runa Deborah Ray, her `Against the Tide' collection, inspired the Pacific salmon, proved to be a good catch, for she won the `Best Design Collection' trophy. Exotic colours of the fish, splashed with textures of the sea, propped up Runa's women's evening wear collection.However, it was Sushil Kumar's `Lakshman Rekha', that bagged the `Most Practical Collection' award. ``In my collection, the functionality of the line is shown by dividing the look of the garment from formal to casual,'' the budding designer says. Marching to the beats of `Mission Impossible', the models displayed the collection replete with zippers and velcro working magic in converting formals to casual wear.

If Friday's show left the audience yearning for better modelling, the other show, on Sunday evening, `Summer 2000', proved beyond doubt, that the city does face a scarcity of good models.

Brilliant in parts but disappointing overall, the show did have glimpses of genius, eclipsed by poor event management. The `models', but for the professional few, were poor cousins, the barely saving grace being the compering, Blossom Kochhar's make- up and hairstyling and the sound and light component.

Sample this: The posters screamed Madhu Sapre, who never made it. Next, choreographer Kaushik Ghosh walks the ramp, but he did not fit his own minimum prescribed qualification of ``five feet 10 inch'' for the job.

Sadly, the number of seats were much less than number of people invited, and tempers flew around. Not a model show.

By Sudhish Kamath

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