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The money factor
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Beyond the arc lights and silhouettes, it was business that the designers were looking at. And the HFW was just a beginning of this venture.
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FASHION BUSINESS: HFW was an opportunity for exposure on home turf.
WITH THE Lakme India Fashion Week fresh in mind, the bottom line at the Hyderabad Fashion Week (HFW) was business, especially for designers with an exposure outside - Moghny Khan having Viv Richards and Jas Arora for his clients, Fatima Aman known for her successful `karga' shows abroad, and Preeti Sanghani whose ensembles sell like hot cakes at Mumbai, Baroda and Ahmedabad looking for an exposition on home turf.
Participating designers were given invites to call their clients - retailers and who's who for the show, apart from allotting stalls to them to conduct business, that turned out to be a damp squib. "Designers were worried about the duplication of their work so we dropped the idea of stalls," says Arun Kumar, Traditions Event Management Pvt Ltd. As for enquiries, "it is a lukewarm response since there was not much promotion," says a designer at the HFW.
However, HFW provided a much-needed platform for the wannabe Versaces and Armanis from the fashion schools here. "We are here to do business and not just to show clothes. Visibly, it is the numbers we would be looking at after spending a whopping sum at the course," says a NIFTian. Added to this was the indifference meted out by local boutiques, to retailing their work.
"We would be glad to encourage good designers and offer them rack-space. They need to look into infrastructure, management and other details of the fashion industry to get a beneficial pricing. The students have the right attitude but need a little more to go on the design front," says Vivek Khurana, owner of `Origins'.
But, is there a market for haute couture in the twin cities? "Very much. People go to Mumbai and Bangalore to shop for designer ensembles. Give us a chance and we'll do a better job," says designer Arvind Jashava.
SYEDA FARIDA
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