Thaindian News

New Delhi, June 23 (IANS) It what is being described as a step closer to unity, the newly-promoted Fashion and Design Promotion Council (FDPC) announced Tuesday that it had engaged style impresario Sumeet Nair’s Prodigy Fashion to stage what for the moment is being simply called two editions of a “Fashion Week”.
In practical terms, what this means is that Nair has merged his own breakaway Delhi Fashion Week, of which he has staged two editions, into the new entity.

Sunil Sethi, president of the decade-old Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI) that has staged 13 editions of the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week (WIFW), immediately welcomed the development if it was in the interest of staging consolidated fashion weeks.

At the same time, he was firm on two issues: the consolidated event should bear the WIFW nomenclature and that there was no way FDCI would be dissolved.

“I am all in favour of synergy in the industry. I have a feeling we should do one fashion week (in two editions annually). But this is an issue that will be decided by the FDCI board that will meet on Thursday,” Sethi told IANS soon after Nair’s event management firm announced its tie-up with FDPC.

Asked if he was comfortable with working with Nair, who had walked out as the FDCI executive director after a bitter spat last June, Sethi replied: “Am I comfortable? I have no problem if someone wants to contribute.”

At the same time, the FDCI “cannot just shut shop”, Sethi pointed out.

“We have been in existence for 10 years. We are a legal entity. We have a brand image. We have certain legal and other commitments. We have to fulfil these,” Sethi maintained.

The new dispensation envisages giving Sethi overall control of the show with Nair looking after the nitty-gritty of event management.

Speaking about his new role, Nair said: “We will continue the same philosophy of presenting the Fashion Week with additional resources from the Fashion and Design Promotion Council.

“While conceptualising the Delhi Fashion Week we had two key premises in mind; one that an independent jury will look into the selection of designers, slots and stall allocation to maintain quality of designers along with upholding the transparency of the entire process and second was to create a world class luxury event.”

“The Fashion and Design Promotion Council has encouraged these as guiding forces for the new event that will be held under their aegis. Fashion and Design Promotion Council’s Fashion Week will continue to focus on luxury and creativity,” he added.

Nair pointed out that over the last one year, Prodigy Fashion had collaborated with Rendezvous Paris and New York as well as with other international bodies to start exchange programmes for Indian and international designers.

“Moving forward we will bring these associations and partnerships to FDPC’s Fashion Week to build it into a strong international event,” he added.

Reading between the lines, this could make for quite some friction, but as Sethi pointed, everything would be sorted out at Thursday’s FDCI board meeting.