India's Fashion Is Its Own Victim

By DEVITA SARAF

My calendar is usually filled with technology conferences, business awards or executive committee meetings of different chambers of commerce. But once in a while I like to indulge myself by attending a fashion show or two at the India Fashion Week. The occasional catwalk watching gives me all the color and entertainment the business events usually lack.

Devita Saraf

As a businesswoman however I also love looking beneath the layers of the fashion festival to try to see if anyone really makes money from all its glamour.

Fashion weeks are supposed to be trade events where fashion editors and department store buyers are the most-sought after, front-row guests. In India, for some reason, most of the front row is reserved for Bollywood actresses, retired models and socialites. While none of them seem to pay for the clothes on their backs, they apparently influence the market greatly.

The celebrities who really do inspire people to buy a particular designer's clothes are usually paid to attend or are sponsored in some other way. They even end up walking the ramp with the models. It's great advertising. Some newspapers during a recent fashion week gave more coverage to the fashion than the finance minister and his budget.

But for people who don't have celebrities as confidantes, it's a tough market to break into. My friends in the industry say the problem is the many fashion weeks here are not taken that seriously by buyers. Indian merchandisers aren't sure what they want so they tend to pick up pieces on consignment. This makes it expensive and risky for new designers to build their brands.

And while there are great Indian designers out there, they tend to be carrying their brand by themselves, backed up by a few interns. Good designers should focus on design and delegate operations, marketing and money-raising duties to other experienced professionals.

Few India-based, Indian designers have made it big abroad. They have had showings at Paris or Milan fashion weeks and are heralded by papers here as the "Pride of India", but not many have made it to the racks of Harvey Nichols, Bloomingdale's, Galeries Lafayette or Bergdorf Goodman. More designers from East Asia have become successful in the western countries in this business, just like more of their movie stars and directors have made it in Hollywood.

The reason for the lack of international interest as well as the obsession with Bollywood at the fashion weeks is probably because the industry here is too busy with local business.

Indians spend as much as a small nation's GDP on weddings, much of that on fashionable wedding wear. Luxury brands such as Gucci, Versace and Dior have found success in India as trousseau gifts but local designers still control the wedding wear market.

Indian designers have made it big because we still wear traditional Indian clothing at weddings. And while you won't see the wedding saris in many haute couture shows abroad, the traditional outfits can cost the same as a car - and weigh as much as the bride.

The western market, in spite of being better organized, has suffered from the global recession. Vogue has even launched an industry-bolstering initiative called "Fashion's Night Out" to encourage late-night luxury purchases.

In India we don't need that yet because there is still a buyer out there for almost anything with a label. But if Indian designers want to build global brands, they need to treat fashion weeks more like a business than a film production.

Indian designers are talented and the next generation is even more clued in with the latest trends and materials. Unfortunately they don't have access to organized capital or organized retail to help them expand. They depend largely, and sadly, on celebrities to patronize and popularize their brands.

I do love fashion and I wore my best designer threads at the shows. But I love it as a consumer and not as a business.

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