The Tossed Salad

Last week Mumbai saw the ramps glittering with the Malhotra, Lulla, Rocky S, Phadnis collections at the Lakmé Fashion Week from the 18th of this month till the 22nd at the Grand Hyatt. Apart from the biggies, we even saw work from accessory designers like Mehak Gupta, Ritu Kapoor and Eina Ahluwalia. Emerging designers Imcha Imchen, Paromita Banerjee, Amalraj Sengupta, Masaba, Mehak Jain, Rahul Anand, Sabah Sharma, and Shrea were also showcased.

In spite of the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, London Fashion Week, Rosemount Sydney Fashion Festival in Sydney, L’Oreal Fashion Week, LFW didn’t fail to gather appreciation and get the limelight by the world media and people.
Celebrating its 10th edition this year, the Lakme Fashion Week was on September 18 kick-started by mother-daughter duo Neeta and Nishka Lulla.

Nishka chose to have kiddies start the show with a dance of the fairies, soon models strutted their stuff and caught the attention of the audience. Nishka’s models sported jewellery from Le Novel, Rosato and Bliss to give a youthful and girly appeal and a trendy look. Nishka lulla had the beautiful and dove-eyed girl Dia Mirza, who walked the ramp in a layered white mini gleaming with and her innocent smile surely made the audience go weak in their knees.

Neeta Lulla’s collection had beige as its base colour ,which was used with varied combinations of golds and silvers for creating that magic which was spelled throughout her show. Neeta’s show stopper was the bold and beautiful lass, Sameera Reddy in a beige jersey dhoti skirt and a crafted “not so” there choli, accompanied with minimal jewellery.

Traditional and contemporary designer Anita Dongre’s Timeless collection displayed her understanding of the uniqueness of each woman’s beauty, grace, body and also the pulse of a woman’s desire. Best Emerging Designer at the Marie Claire Fashion Awards, Anand Kabra also displayed Kumari, his collection portraying the so called “tainted human that pseudo morality shuns”.

Flower appliqués were seen throughout the collections of Chaitanya Rao, Preeti Chandra and Rimzim Dadu. Yellow was the predominant color in collections by Kallol Datta and Narendra Kumar. Over 100 models added to the glam of the LFW, and glam dolls like Deepika Padukone, Malaika Arora Khan, Sameera Reddy, Lara Dutta and Sushmita Sen set the ramp on fire and to add on John Abraham walked for Rocky S.

The five-day fashion extravaganza came to a befitting stylish end in Mumbai with top designer Tarun Tahiliani’s boasted  collection drenched in rich elegance dazzling everyone with a fabulous mix of fashion and beauty. Tahiliani, who has earlier been the Grand Finale designer in 2001 , 2005 and  has developed a reputation as one of India’s finest ethnic wear designers, showed hints of his reputation with his contemporized  traditional Indian collection The Painterly Vision inclusive of sari gowns, tonga tunic, fringed kurtas Nav Vaari  in plum, Goth, violets,  moultan gold and understated yet effective embroidery.

The second part of the collection was colorful and tribal with the most amazing boleros teamed with modern shirts and finely tailored trousers all embellished with phulkari, ombre while the elegant Bhagalpur fabrics with block prints were turned into swaying kurtas. The final ‘piece de resistance’ Padshanama line of more classic layered silhouettes with Swarovski crystals gave a fitting end on a high note to the jaded fashion week.

One of the designs in Tarun's collection by Lucknow girl, Swati Agarwal.

Giving a nod to ethnic and tribal wear Tahiliani’s collection transformed the delicately woven clothes into strong statement for contemporary times.

Among the designs from Tarun’s camp, Lucknow Kolkata girl Swati Agarwal, an internee with Tarun, shone bright with five of her gorgeous saris and dresses in his collection.

The collection — called Flashback to Glamour — was inspired by an Indian yogini -meets- apsarette kind of concept, the designs consisted of Grecian togas and tunics, saris, boleros and kurtas mostly in molten gold,one of the Lakme fall colours. , set off by complex colours, appliqué work, Swarovski crystal components and rich jewellery. Innovative sari drapes were yet another feature every designer experimented with. Raakesh Agarvwal, Wendell Rodricks and Tarun Tahiliani all showed saris on the final day.

The finale presented the beautiful three faces of Lakme – Vipasha Agarwal in a lemon gold lace drape with a sculpted bustier, Indrani Dasgupta in a lace encrusted with Swarovski crystallized rubies, pearls, diamonds and emerald fluted floral blouse and sari; while Amrit Maghera wore a copper lace sari draped with a sequined corset. The fourth new face, Lisa Haydon sailed down the ramp in a silver sari drape worn with a sequined bustier.

Looking forward to Delhi Fashion Week now. By the way, after Bangalore had their first fashion week this year, Pune also recently wrapped up their first one too! Glad to know other cities are moving ahead too.

Zeeba Baig

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[image courtesy: The main stills are from emerging designer Imcha Imchen's collection.]

Author: Zeeba Baig
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