Is Hyderabad fashionable enough?

Designer Shravan Kumar was in for a pleasant surprise at the Lakme Fashion Week (LFW) Winter\ Festive 2013 in end-August, when design guru Rohit Bal picked up a couple of his ensembles, (khadi waistcoats and jackets), from his men’s line. More was to come: Sabyasachi came looking for him in the green room, to enquire about the trendy bags crafted from bamboo, (sourced from a disadvantaged tribal weaver community in Mahbubnagar ) and recycled leather, which scorched the ramp.And before we forget, adman Prahlad Kakkar, and a much-loved Mumbaikar, also made his ramp debut at Shravan’s show!
The good run was extended to the three other participating Hyderabadi designers: Gaurang Shah, (his Stridhan collection in Gujarati Patola was well-received ), Anusree Reddy (with her Tantrum Bride collection) and Shilpa Reddy. In fact, modelturned-designer Shilpa marked a resonant debut on the LFW ramp, with ‘Suriyothai’, a Thai-warriorinspired collection of fl uid drapes, highlighted by power shoulders and glitter of very elegantly done Thaistyled jewellery. “The Lakme platform is huge in terms of what happens to you, post the show. I landed at least three serious business inquiries, there were fashion shoots happening for magazines, it was a great buzz,” shares Shilpa.
Hyderabad’s fashion designers have perhaps never had it better, one would think, when it comes to buzzing on the national fashion circuit. Or have they?
“Lakme\Wills Lifestyle Fashion Weeks, which are supposed to be b2b (business to business) models, showcasing the latest designs for the forthcoming season to buyers\retail, are still quite a farce, and yet to get organized, in terms of a serious business agenda, to even compare with the fashion weeks in Milan, London or Paris. In the absence of patenting, most designers are ‘inspired’ by each other,” says fashion entrepreneur Kamini Saraf.
“Hyderabad doesn’t still have enough retail, so local events like the Hyderabad Fashion Week mean little to the actual business of fashion . You see no forum at the venue for b2b inquiries. Instead, you see a crowd which, pardon me, wants to just see bodies on the ramp or the wannabe socialite, who wants to be photographed. You won’t see retail houses\boutiques invited. I have never been invited, by the organizers, although a participating designer might have invited me personally,” adds Saraf, who pioneered the trend of fashion expos in the city with Fashion Yatra, which took off in 2005 from being an annual to being a full-house, tri-annual event today.
Agrees Shilpa, “The Hyderabad Fashion Week is a huge joke, actually, as there is no business aspect. No single buyer is invited or comes there. I don’t know what purpose it serves!”
Recalls socialite Vinita Pittie, reckoned among Hyderabad’s fi rst national designers to be reckoned nationally, “Hyderabad has come a long way, since the late ‘70s, when I came here as a young bride. There was no innate fashion consciousness as such in Hyderabad. The focus was on grand and heavy, with what was, and is still, known as ‘bhaari’ embroidery work, on wedding\festive ensembles; the small clutch of people who were into brands, shopped in Mumbai and Delhi. In fact, my first show of mulmul Hyderabadi ‘khada dupattas’ was in Mumbai, in the late ‘80s, and it was a sell-out . Around the early 90s, there was a selective shift towards fashion labels, in no small measure, thanks to Elahe’s store launching in Secunderabad,” shares Vinita. “Today, Hyderabad has evolved as a big consumer of fashion, and I’m not restricting the term to mean clothing. It encompasses many other consumables, styling, packaging and presentation, gifting, accessories, the whole gamut of lifestyle, if you may. Also, no price is high for the brand-conscious Hyderabadi, and I’m referring to the serious buyers here,” she adds.
Film producer Elahe Hiptoola, who launched the city’s fi rst fashion retail store Elahe in Secunderabad (housed in the same premises as the Raja Deen Dayal photo studio) in October 1993, remembers, “the fabulous reception by Hyderabad to the store on launch day, when clothes went flying off the rack” .
“We were stocking Abu-Jani, Sandeep Khosla, Aki Narula, Anamika Khanna and Arjun Khanna, brands which people would usually shop for in Mumbai and Delhi. It was an old bungalow; people would saunter in, pluck a few tamarinds from the tree outside, sit around and browse their way shopping, in the most relaxed manner. I would definitely say Elahe created fashion brand awareness in Hyderabad,” she adds fondly.
Fascinatingly, Elahe has stood the test of time, having changed ownership and location several times, but not its name and brand loyalty in the city. “I think it’s a lot to do with Elahe’s lovable personality, no owner wanted to change the brand name, as there is so much recall value associated with the name,” chips in Vinita, who doesn’t endorse the trend of weekly fashion expos in the city. “Except a couple of shows, like Kamini’s Yatra, you will find a lot of unsold stuff at the stalls, with the participants grumbling that the organizers only walk away with their cut,” she adds.
Adds Elahe, “Hyderabad has endured the cookie cutter syndrome. In the early years of Elahe, there was more of Indian formal and semi formal on the racks, but now Hyderabad has both the traditional and modern co-existing, so we will see Sabyasachi’s Kanjeevarams being equally lapped up as Western ensemble brands.”
Perhaps that explains the extending list of haute couture designers opening their standalone retail outlets in the city. Tarun Tahiliani, Sabyasachi, Shantanu & Nikhil, Vikram Phadnis, among others.
“It’s still a niche group, lets say 200 people in Hyderabad who endorse haute couture, and know their Tarun Tahilianis and Sabyasachis,” says Saraf, who also owned and ran Elahe for a brief period in the late 90’s . Shilpa counters, “I think Hyderabad is the Delhi of the South, we like to dress over-the-top, in heavy and opulent ensembles. We are inspired by the Nizami culture, where everything is on a grand scale, and you will see not just Sabyasachi or Tarun Tahiliani, but Suneet Varma or Varun Bahl in bridal trousseaus. Brides are willing to shell out up to Rs 3 lakh for their bridal outfits, so the sky is the limit for fashion designers when it comes to customizing the same.”
In the end, Hyderabad might not be in the same league as Mumbai, Delhi or even Bengaluru as a fashion destination, but it’s getting there, and pretty fast!