Delhi Fashion Week - Competition is the Whetstone of Talent
Thursday, February 19th, 2009By Sumeet Nair
Aware of the many questions, issues and speculations being raised of late, I was hoping to bring to light the Delhi Fashion Week stance for your understanding.
Subjectively speaking, and I quote, “Innovation is the ability to see change as an opportunity, not a threat”. With the Indian fashion industry in its prime, blossoming in all of the seven seas – innovation and change is inevitable and perpetual.
When each Week identifies with its respective ideologies and forte, why force a unison when the two can thrive individually. In any industry, competition is perceived as a mandatory ingredient in inducing success; however it has been belittled in the case of our fashion industry. Competition is the whetstone of talent; it motivates, it inspires, it simply ensures one’s best efforts. Thus having two fashion weeks does in fact generate more opportunities, more options for budding designers and dual platforms for our country’s talent. The competition serves as grounds for both events to be better prepared, more creative, more specialized, setting even higher standards for one another. With the fierce cause of having to prove themselves, having two fashion weeks only opens more doors, breeding greater growth, opportunity and innovation. Even the customer is more powerful because he/she has options to choose from. So why not embrace the two bodies and their respective niche rather than focusing on the supposed politics behind it all.
Today Delhi Fashion Week continues to stand firmly with its convictions of promoting the most creative talent and creating a luxury platform that will strengthen the case for making India and Delhi authentic fashion destinations. Quoting the respectable Minister Mr. Shankar Singh Vaghela while he was addressing the press at the Fashion Design Promotion Council’s launch, ‘…there should be multiple fashion events in different cities in India’ – this is the way forward. We will work towards translating this vision into a reality.
Conclusively, I agree with our peers, too much time has already been spent contemplating the question of one fashion week or two - the spotlight needs to urgently be brought back onto the nation’s talent and the young creative minds, rather than the speculative bickering.