Lakme Fashion Week

Ten years ago, no one was quite sure what the Lakme Fashion Week was. A designer says that earlier the show was all about not showing skin and wearing traditional designs.

There have been shows so conservative one wondered if it was fashion at all. And then there were the wardrobe malfunctions of fallen bustiers and exposed backsides, and designer spats that were all too out in the open — unlike anything seen in say, New York’s fashion weeks. But a lot has changed. A decade on, Fashion Week’s shows are filled with skimpily clad women that make it clear the designers are taking every chance to experiment. And the clothes are evolving fast. This year, the creations of designers like Preeti Chandra and Rehane were daring and quite separate from traditional Indian wear.

In the basement of the heavily perfumed and air-conditioned Grand Hyatt, where 10 beefy security guards mark the territory between the pass holding and the rest of the dusty world, women enter with as little clothing on as they want. They know they will be surrounded by only the most fabulous and most beautiful, at least for the next six hours. Male and female models at their prime walk in perfect cadence down the ramp. It seemed as faultless as other fashion weeks I’d attended around the globe.

Image: Arko Datta / Reuters

By the time I leave, I’m well aware that over 10 years, Lakme Fashion Week’s blouses and espadrilles and zipper placements have evolved. The wardrobe malfunctions no longer happen. Buyers from around the globe are eating up India’s new designs hungrily. But I get the feeling Fashion Week still has some growing up to do, if it wants the flawless finish other fashion weeks around the world have managed to attain.