The Hindu Business Line : NIFT plans event to highlight design tech in fashion show

COMPETENCE across design technology management and getting recognition for its unique role to disseminate fashion design technology in textiles and accessories such as jewellery and footwear have together actuated National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) to launch a mega fashion event to showcase a broad cross-section of capabilities of the Indian fashion and textile industries next month here.

Disclosing this to Business Line here in an interview, the Director-General, NIFT, Ms Gauri Kumar, said the institute has conceptualised "dsyn 04" as a global trade show with the objective to demonstrate that India could provide competitive advantages as a location for apparel manufacture in terms of the design and product development.

The event, from March 29 to 31, would "highlight design as a major intervention across the value chain," Ms Kumar said, adding that "design is what distinguishes an ordinary from extraordinary with the past concern of design as an elitist concept giving way to modern movement of cost-effective mass-fashion manufacture of stylish and trendy garments for diverse range of consumers."

Ms Kumar said that today the textile industry was a fragmented one with designers, garmenting units, processors and merchandisers (both wholesalers and retailers) with the value chain not getting properly integrated for any effective interchange of experience and expertise of each one of the stakeholders for the benefit of the industry and the larger consumers for providing value for money. "So how do we integrate the value chain and how are we going to provide a platform so that different segments could come together for mutual benefit" was the catalyst for dsyn 04.

Incidentally, `dsyn 04' is an acronym exemplifying — innovation from the `design' elements, pragmatism from `synectics' aimed at solving problems and intellectualism from `noetics' pertaining to pure intellect, she added.

Ms Kumar said that expressions of interest were sought from fashion designers, apparel manufactures and organised textile mills to participate in developing a collection for a specific apparel sector and "a lot of investment of the industry has gone into the development of collections."

She said that with the exponential growth of fashion retailing domestically, India itself accounts for 50 per cent of all mass-produced apparel which includes a cross-section of manufacturing from traditional dress to high-end western ready-to- wear. International delegates would come from countries that are looking to import fashion apparel and or design services at lower cost, she said.

Asked about the cost of the event, Ms Kumar said that the three-day fashion event would roughly cost Rs 24 crore with the Ministry of Textiles, industry sponsors and NIFT bearing the cost and inputs with the Australian event management company Australian Fashion Innovator (AFI) assisting the whole event.

Talking to Business Line here, the CEO of AFI, Mr Simon P. Lock, said that his company has been roped in to make the mega fashion show the most happening event as AFI has done similar shows in the Asia-Pacific region for over a decade. For the first time, an `aggressive' fashion marketing event manager from Australia is brought in, he said, adding that "what we try to do is bringing in international sensibility to the fashion industry to try and assist it in making the Indian fashion industry world class."

Mr Lock said that the job is challenging because the Indian fashion industry is not quite used to working at global level and there are "cultural challenges" with the task being cut out to "showcasing Indian capabilities in design aesthetics and handcrafted techniques and modern manufacturing."

"As all markets tend to be global, the economy of the world dictates what a particular country's expertise is. If you are good in something, you will survive. India is particularly fortunate with an extraordinary competitive labour force. There is also a perception that Indian quality in manufacturing is not as good as some of us. But India is also clever in investing in fashion institutes like NIFT so as to increase education, expertise and technical skill. A lot of advancement has taken place in Indian fashion. The forthcoming fashion event would highlight the reality from the perception of the past," Mr Lock said. AFI has been focussing on the opportunities in the Asia-Pacific region and India has naturally fitted into this strategy, he added.

The AFI chief said that rather than putting up another trade fair of the usual genre, NIFT has outlined a consortia approach among nine identified apparel sector to collaborate collections and each collection is being fostered and produced in co-operation between a designer, manufacturer and textile supplier.

He hoped that this diverse range of collections would provide "a huge opportunity" for Indian fashion industry's coming of age.