Fashion grand finale mesmerises audience

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, April 21

After two days of magnificent presentations, Ludhiana Fashion Week, the annual design contest organised by the local Inter National Institute of Fashion Design concluded with a thrilling grand finale today.

The third season of the event, which began on April 19, showcased the final collections of graduating students and alumni designers to the audience.

Awards in various categories based on inspiration, creativity, innovation, style and experimentation were given at the end of the show.

The final day of the fashion week witnessed 12 collections designed by the students. The student designers picked inspiration from various themes such as Raslila of Lord Krishna, traditional handicrafts, yin-yang, truck art, royal palaces, fusion of khadi and contemporary designs, junk art, lady soldiers in war and the concept of kamidere.

Taking back to the good old days of Lord Krishna, the collection “Dance of the Divine Love” by Ritika Arora connected contemporary ideas to traditional ones. The garments in shades of mint, blush pink from the mythological lotus flower and carolina blue stolen from Lord Krishna’s body complexion, portrayed balance and harmony.

Antiquate was a collection highlighting Bidriware - a metal handicraft from Bidar. The collection was inspired by handcrafted design of utensils and vessels from the 14th century, and therefore, molded metal charms in various forms were used with motifs of leaves, flowers, geometric patterns and intricate designs. The designers, Aarzoo and Gungeet Kaur, were apparently on a mission to use antique motifs on garments based on western silhouettes, to achieve modernisation, yet not letting the antiquities and their charm fade away.

Taking inspiration from yin-yang, Manpreet Kaur used two colours, black and white, which depict two types of emotions, negative and positive, to create her collection, “The Black Sheep”. The collection created western silhouettes using scooba, embroidered net, organza, crepe and others for young girls aged between 18 and 25.

The unique collection “Culture on Wheels” was inspired by truck art. The designer, Simerpreet Kaur, was greatly inspired by the motifs and colours used in the art, so she decided to use the hand-painted technique to create colourful motifs on asymmetrical silhouettes.

Student designer, Heena Tangri, showcased her collection “Whimsical Dream” which she had displayed during her participation in Fashion Scout during London Fashion Week. Heena had used Pichwai paintings and art of Taj Mahal as her inspiration. The use of heavy satin, net fabrics, georgette made her collection look royal, which were embellished by using techniques like zardosi, tila work, pitta work, katdana, bead work and thread work to show bond of embroideries from different religions.

“After my successful debut at London Fashion Week, I have now launched my brand “De Regueur” and am looking forward to making it big in the fashion world,” said Heena.

Other similar attraction was the collection “Royal Enigma” presented by Muskan Gaba, the student designer who presented the collection at Fashion Scout during London Fashion Week in February 2019. Taking inspiration from Rani Padmavati’s royalty, all motifs on rich fabrics in the collection were created from the jewellery that she used to carry and some of the Islamic floral work which was done on the walls of Chittor Fort, Rani Padmavati’s residence.

The inspiration for the collection “The Leftovers” was junk art. The designer, Sidharth Likhi, got fascinated with the artwork of Jane Perkins, a UK-based artist, who has made portraits of celebrities, including Queen Elizabeth and Donald Trump, from waste material. He used material similar to what Jane Perkins uses, such as buttons, pomp pomps, nalki, sippi, all pasted in geometrical shapes such as squares, rectangles and triangles as embellishments in monochrome colour scheme using fabric glue on A-line silhouettes.