Social responsibility: The new mantra

Raul Dias / TNN / Oct 18, 2007, 00:00 IST

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‘Social responsibility’ seemed to be the newest fashion mantra that was shining with all its altruistic glitter well in place at the Lakme Fashion Week.

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Agnimitra Paul with the kantha artisans (TOI Photo) More picsFashion Week had collections that went beyond just fashion.
‘Social responsibility’ seemed to be the newest fashion mantra that was shining with all its altruistic glitter well in place at the Lakme Fashion Week (LFW) Spring Summer 2008.
And no, the LFW guys hadn’t conspired with each other to make it their life’s mission to force-feed the super thin models with asli ghee!!
Over the past five days, a few participating designers decided that it was high time they took up myriad social causes right from helping the hand-block printing community to the eradication of illiteracy to instilling amongst us a sense of — get this — ‘unpatriotism’.

...and all this by juxtaposing their creations with causes they believe in. Take the consummate master of the cut, Narendra Kumar for instance. His Day 3 collection titled ‘Freedom from Illiteracy’ sought to blend education with style. And he managed to get his message across ultra successfully as he always manages to do with his mini skirts and funky tunics in this collection.
Day 2 had Gayatri Khanna doing her bit for global warming with her collection titled just that, ‘Global Warming’. Her aim was to “showcase the two sides of this worrisome environmental issue — the beauty of nature and the damage it’s been facing in recent times — through the use of colours, fabrics, embroidery and interesting prints.”

Aptly christened ‘The Sapling’ Ekta Jaipura and Ruchira Kandhari’s Day 4 collection emphasised the duo’s commitment to amalgamating environmental issue with fashion by using eco friendly organic cottons in earthy shades of beiges, browns, rusts and leaf green in their saris and kalidar kurtas.
Also on Day 4, a few Gen Next designers felt the need to pay obeisance to the world we live in. Duo Roopa Pemmaraju and Kanick Raj’s esoterically titled collection ‘Unpatriotica’ had the tag line of ‘clothes without borders’.
Using their creations as “vehicles to wipe out the nationalistic signs from our garb and to identify ourselves as individuals, belonging to the same world, without any bias or prejudice”, Roopa and Kanick’s dresses made from chiffon, georgette, cotton and silk cotton stood out.
Another Gen Next designer who went down the ‘social responsibility path’ was Bijoya Mukherjee’s collection ‘Tryst with Fundamentals’ that the designer says is a “sincere effort made to revive the hand-block printing community in Rajasthan.” Another designer with a similar agenda, but with the idea of reviving the dying kantha embroidery technique was Agnimitra Paul, who’s Day 4 collection ‘Stitch Story -— The Kantha Tale’ played out like a well-told story. After her show, which had plenty of pure cottons, mulmuls and khadi creations — all embellished with the kantha stitch, Agni celebrated the kantha embroiderers by taking her bow flanked by two such artisans, showing us that fashion does have a latent conscience hidden somewhere. Its denizens just need to suss it out the right way every now and then!

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