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Retail…Fashion retail… Fashioning retail…. Top of the mind words that echo and re-echo through IMAGES events as the effort continues to propel the business of retail and fashion lifestyle from its disorganised clutter to evolve into a corporate, organised, scientifically managed industry. After decades of waiting in the wings, retail is finally being heralded as the next sunrise sector of the country after IT, perhaps bigger. Union Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath affirmed: “I am here...

Bollywood Boulevard. Filmistan. Cine Walk. Name it what you will. But, just imagine A nation almost hysterical about its film stars. A nation that hums the same ditties whenever a film is set to hit the box-office. A nation where Bollywood could well be synonymous with a ramp that entertains you with a song-music-dance and a story where fashion seduces in a riot of wispy chiffons, luxurious silks, casual skirts or natty shirts and trousers Fardeen ‘Provogue’ Khan gave the shirt brand an...

Luxury… interesting word… roll it around your tongue and you feel the rich luxurious texture… luxury is luxury… there can be no other word for it, there could not have been any other word for it. And who better than India, nay Indians, to know it. We Indians know how well it rests cheek by jowl with the vaunted snake charmers, beggars, huts, shanties and slums that serve as home, sweet home. A chink through the slats of a hut; wink and gaze out of that chink caused where the weather-beaten slat...

From couture, to diffusion, to prêt. The designs of fashion in India, since the inception of the India Fashion Week just five years back, has seen the high-brow fashion designer stoop to meet the masses at their price points. From sheer drama on the catwalk to a drama created to draw buyers and not just mere applause to the rounds of cocktails and Pg 3 titter, the success of the annual Weeks can now be measured in terms of this gradual movement. Incidentally for this edition, ‘Join the fashion...

To say this is the worst of times for the Indian fashion designer would be an outrageous fallacy. To say this is the best of times also might not always ring truly true. I'm sure there will be raised eyebrows aplenty even over this assertion. But, let's look at simple figures. The prêt industry has the potential of generating business worth Rs 2,500 crore annually. The present day figures will not touch even a Rs 100 crore mark if it is just designer prêt we talk about, and this inclusive of...