Thaindian News

By Madhushree Chatterjee
New Delhi, Sep 25 (IANS) Designer Manish Arora is taking his “futuristic” collection, which combines Indian techniques with geometric designs, to the Paris Fashion Week 2010 and he says the global fashion trend this spring-summer, especially in Europe, is individualistic.

“The bottomline of international fashion is that it should no longer be boring. Fashion has to stand out and the product should take over brand as an individual entity for clients to notice it,” Arora told IANS as he unveiled his spring/summer formal evening wear collection for the Paris Fashion Week 2010 at the Park Hotel here late Thursday.

“My collection for 2010 is futuristic, inspired by Indian techniques and western geometric designs. It hints at crystalline glamour, spartan chic and at the same time is wearable because of the Indian influences and techniques,” Arora said.

The designer has collaborated for the Paris collection with the Aamby Valley City - the Sahara-backed business group’s maiden foray into the super premium fashion segment.

“Fashion is a natural extension of the virtues exemplified by Aamby Valley City as a brand. The synergy between the two brands Aamby Valley City - luxury, lifestyle personified and finesse of Manish Arora’s designs helped forge the partnership,” said Seemanto Roy, head of Aamby Valley City & Entertainment Business.

The collection is themed on “geometrical shapes and sci-fi”, a departure from Arora’s las season’s colourful “jungle range”. The silhouettes in the collection are mostly 80s’-inspired dresses.

Supported by Swarovski, the collection was described by the designer as “mute, metallic, crystalline and European with wide and stiff shoulders resembling Greek armour-plates and military epaulettes”.

The cache comprises glamorous evening ensembles like Princess Lea’s futuristic gowns from the Star War series, short skirts, summer jackets, sheer sequinned pants and tops. The hips are padded for additional contours.

The dresses are embellished with crystals, beads, fine metal sheaths, applique embroidery and long Victorian trains along the assymetrical hemlines, trailing into metres of sheer organza, crepe, nets, cotton-satins, silk and georgettes on the floor.

The bodices are stiff with winged lapels in geometric shapes. The colour palette largely comprises black, orange, white, grey and ombres with an emphasis on neon shades for detailing and embroidery.

“This is my fifth season at fashion’s biggest trade event - the Paris Fashion Week and my ninth showcase at the Paris (five shows) and London (four shows) weeks put together,” Arora said.

Explaining the making of one of the outfitS, a silhouette hugging pencil-line evening gown with a train, Arora said: “It took nearly 200 metres of cloth to create the train - a fabric of small textile discs in concentric colours, which are stitched together. The tri-coloured dress in pink, metallic grey and blue makes use of 3,000 small hand-embroidered sequin circles. The mirrors are hidden in small hand-embroidered meshes. I tried to put a lot of fuss back into fashion and make it as complicated as possible,” he said.

Arora says despite the recession, his market has been growing by 20 percent every year.

Sanjay Sharma of Crystallised-Swarovski Elements, which had helped Arora embellish the clothes with a variety of crystals told IANS: “Our collaboration with Manish goes back eight to nine years ever since he has been showing in London and Paris. Manish has even designed a special brand of crystal called ‘Transfers’ in 70 colours for us that can be ironed into the clothes directly. It was launched a week ago in Paris.”