March 14, 2013-The long awaited Wills India Fashion Week Fall-Winter 2013-2014 started at Pragati Maidan on Wednesday afternoon in the capital. Masaba Gupta’s show Masaba for Satya Paul kicked things off half an hour late, and most stalls were still setting up.
Just as the previous year, the two main runways have been created right opposite each other on the 1st floor, with a giant gap in the middle that overlooks the designer stalls and the live bands/performances (which get annoying after a while).
Though day one started on a vibrant note with the young designer’s neon and pop colour infused collection, and throughout the day designers seemed to follow this trend-almost each designer had one element of pop in their collection.
This year the lengths have increased and straight fit, knee length dresses dominated the ramp; the flair has been reduced with many more straight cut kurtas, and lots of embellishments shimmered throughout. Not to be missed chunky jewellery and large size bags. The turnout at the shows wasn’t great, and the only Bollywood quotient was a sudden appearance of the long forgotten bubbly actress Preity Zinta, who was the show stopper for Surily.
Dressed in an off-shoulder, embellished black gown, Zinta sure did make her fan club whistle when she casually walked the stage, waving and smiling at the audience. Others seen daunting the first row were A.D.Singh who marked attendance for almost all the shows, Mandira Bedi, Pia Pauro and Nida Mahmood who cheered for Masaba; Wendell Rodricks, Shehnaz Hussain, Ambika Pillai and Shobha De made a quite appearance.
Trend Of The Day:
Neon pop colours-florescent pinks, yellows, blues and greens were seen in Masaba’s collection of skirts, sarees, over coats; Anupamaa’s Ishq e dilli collection inspired by Islamic art also had a collection of silhouettes in this colour pallete and Nikhasha’s structured chiffon tunics and lehengas followed the trend. Pankaj and Nighi’s collection The Music Box was also dominated by fuscia-navy colour.
Black and White Stripes are back in vogue and were seen across the board from Masaba’s stripped dresses to Anupamaa’s black and white printed sarees; there were certain elements of stripes in others collections too. A lot of quirk was visible on dresses, sarees, pants; that were first seen on Satya Paul’s sarees which had lipsticks and telephone booth’s printed on the fall to Pankaj and Nidhi’s dresses and skirts in fuscia-navy colour that had keyboards, and other music instruments. Kanika Saluja Chaudhary, and Namrata Joshipura experimented with heavy metal embellishments on dresses, jumpsuits, jackets keeping the colour palette to grey and black.
Quirk show of the day:
The buzz about Masaba for Satya Paul fell flat when the show began with the designer’s typical quirky lipstick prints but just when disappointment crept in, her refreshing London telephone booth inspired collection (the phone booth was used to represent the wait for a particular call) which had a gorgeous collection of Satya Paul sarees in tones of grey with fun neon colour prints on the palu drew everyone’s attention.
Trunks, bags, and clutches of the similar print were also appreciated. However designers Pankaj and Nidhi’s collection was a refreshing change-beautifully structured skirts, silk jerseys, cinced-waist jackets and dresses in tones of fuscia blues and pinks with quirky music elements were much appreciated by the audience.
Colors of the Day:
Monochrome dominated the runway on day one. Anupamaa displayed the most varied colour scheme, delving into pinks, blues, greens, yellows, purples, reds and black and white stripes. Kanika Saluja Chaudhary and Namrata Joshipura stuck to sheer blacks.
Inspiration of the day:
Though each designer had an interesting inspiration behind their collection and this reflected in their colourful ensembles, but Kanika Saluja Chaudhary’s inspiration was unique. How Anupama was inspired by Islamic art; Masaba by feminity and the spirit of fun fearless women; Pankaj and Nidhi by music and musical instruments; Kanika Saluja’s collection Fatal Vanity was a combination of satanic influences and hence the use of colour black. The designer shared the reason she chose black was to show the dark side of women.
“Everyone always shows the positive, I’ve tried to show the dark side,” said Saluja. Her collection narrates the life story of a women and her journey through different ballads of life the show began with nudes, and beige dominating her collection, then shades of grey appeared which eventually turned to black. As the colour gets deeper the metallic embellishments increased on the garment to show the society’s pressure. Black leather jackets, long gowns and dresses have that goth/punk touch to it.
Showstopper of the day:
Bollywood star Preity Zinta who walked the ramp for her designer friend Surily Goel grabbed most attention on the first day of WIFW and was undoubtedly the most spoken about showstopper of the day. Surily is also the official designer for Zinta’s IPL team Kings XI Punjab, and their friendship was visible on stage when the actress gave a peck on the designer’s cheek.
Though Surily’s silhouettes comprised jumpsuits, skits and geometrical embroidered dresses in tones of emerald green, burgundy and blue; her showstopper appeared in an long elegant black sequined off shoulder gown, which was the most formal (and prêt) outfit from her collection.
