Au revoir, say the fashion merchants

With a till-we-meet-again handshake, IFW, the designers and the buyers took a break. But not before setting a few trends and making a few promises.
The bling bling factor
Though the colour palette was kept muted in accordance with foreign tastes, the bling bling brigade continues to dazzle offstage and onstage. We catche some of the hottest trends scorching the fashion scene.
The fashion merry go round has completed a circle.It's time once again for silver and gold. The knack is to do it with a hint of sophistication and loads of style. As designer Ranna Gill puts it, "Gold is hot in accessories because it can instantly glam up the whole look and it works well both for day and night."
So even as metallics catch everyone's fancy, there's an overspill of gold bags, silver and golden shoes, bags, belts
Model Indrani Das Gupta was spotted wearing silver pumps from Nine West. She had witnessed this trend abroad in the works of designers like Valentino, and Gucci. Model Neha Kapur was spotted wearing silver Kolhapuris bought from Mumbai.
She says, "Go to New York and you will see silver sequins on shoes all over." Aparna Chandra's funky dress sense translated into wearing silver and pink fish fry shoes and a broad silver belt: "Its fun to go mad with metallics."
So, if Deepika Padukone loves to tote around a huge gold bag to stock all her paraphernalia in and Aditi Govitrakar her demure silver strap sandals, designer Manish Arora carried funky gold shimmer shoes with elan. So it seems that fashion will go the metallics way for some time to come....
Star attractions
Some who came on the first day of the IFW took a look, found no Bollywood stars and went on to report that it was a not so happening event. Wish they'd stayed the whole five days. For, as the event took off, there were some stars around. Some even walked the ramp! Soha Ali Khan came for designer Manav Gangwani's show and went in a jiffy ("I have a flight to catch," she told us).
...Later in the evening, it was actor Rahul Bose's chance to create a near stampede as he came to attend Rajesh Pratap Singh's show. And then Shilpa Shetty's catwalk became the talk of the town. Jaya Bachchan and Sonali Bendre occupied the front row seats for the Abu Jani, Sandeep Khosla show. Even Diya Mirza and Koena Mitra did their catwalk bit.
But the most talked about ���return to ramp' was that of Bipasha Basu... she came with nostalgic memories of the first fashion week when she walked the ramp as a model!
The business
This IFW saw the largest number of designer participation. There were 80 in all, out of whom 10 were firsttimers.
There were 170 buyers (including 70 from abroad) who were watching with a keen eye the proceedings on the ramp.
If one went beyond the 40 odd shows, the stalls would be hard to miss. IFW saw 108 stalls being set up, displaying the hautest of accessories and clothes.
Businesswise, this has been a hectic week too. As compared to last year, there has been a 30-40 per cent increase in sales to the international market. The home front too has surpassed all expectations. For the first time, their sales rates are higher than the global one. A good 84 per cent jump, say those with the calculators.
On an individual level, the Russian chain, TSUM has been the largest international buyer. They're believed to have spent Rs 50 million on this IFW.