Kolkata Fashion Week did little business

KOLKATA - The second edition of Kolkata Fashion Week (KFW) may have recorded a good turnout of designers and spectators, but commerce did not pick up, with foreign buyers staying away due to swine flu and domestic ones calling for better quality control.

“We have just started and we are hopeful that with time we will get more buyers - though this time we have received quite a few buyers,” Pratik Sen, one of the directors of Mindscape Maestro, the organiser of the show, told IANS.

Another official of the company said: “We have got around 14 buyers this time. But many of our international buyers cancelled their trip to the country after the spread of swine flu in the country.”

The extravaganza was held during Sep 9-13 and saw 31 shows by top Indian names as well as upcoming ones from the city and outside. These included 17 established designers and 20 new ones.

Sen said those who opted out after the outbreak of swine flu included buyers from places like Dubai.

Several buyers felt the organisers needed to be more mature and focussed in handling the commercial aspect of fashion. A few buyers suggested the clothes should be screened before zeroing in on designers.

“They are very new in the field. They are a bit amateurish. They should screen the clothes before they finalise the designers to showcase collections at KFW,” Aashish Goenka of Zenon, a city-based designer clothes store, told IANS.

He added: “KFW as a name has become very popular; so they must keep an eye on the quality also.”

Zenon has been around in the city for 20 years and promoted many designers. The Goenkas go for all the important fashion shows in the country, hunting for good collections.

KFW-II opened with Ritu Kumar’s ensemble of Indian and Western attire made by craftsmen of the state, while Satya Paul - the designer brand celebrating its 25th year - exhibited collections based on hand weaving. There was also famous Bangladeshi designer Bibi Russel. The megashow ended with Manish Malhotra’s bridal collection.

City-based designer Tejas Gandhi, who participated, told IANS: “I have got individual buyers for my collection. But they are my old contacts. KFW has to become a little more mature to smoothly coordinate between buyers and designers.”

Echoed designer Leena Taneja: “The buyers I had were my personal contacts.”

However, Mindscape Maestro’s managing director Yudhajit Dutta told IANS that designer Shweta Chhawchharia did good business.

Mayank Agarwal of the store Simaaya told IANS: “From the last KFW, I bought three designer collections, among which one was Rohit Bal.” This year he liked Debarun and Ritu Kumar’s collections.

Anomitra Ganguly, a fashion designer and a store owner, said: “I think KFW needs to be a bit more focused on the buyers part because at the end of the day money only counts.”

(Aparajita Gupta can be contacted at aparajita.g@ians.in)