Lakme Fashion Week 2015: Sabyasachi Mukherjee's show kickstarts the event

Mumbai: The Lakmé Fashion Week Summer/Resort 2015, kickstarted on Wednesday, March 17 with ace designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee's special show on the completion of 15 years of the bi-annual event.

To celebrate the milestone, a heady mix of upcoming and veteran talent is ready to create a benchmark of diversity and creativity in fashion at the five-day gala.

"Our commitment to the business of fashion has made us the platform of choice for established Indian designers from all over the world. We will present five stunning offsite shows this season, including India's first Instagram show with a stellar line-up of top Indian designers," Saket Dhankar, Head-Fashion at IMG Reliance told IANS.

As many as 83 designers and 15 sponsors will participate in Summer/Resort 2015 edition of LFW. The names include those like Raghavendra Rathore, Tarun Tahiliani and Wendell Rodricks, Kiran Uttam Gosh, Krishna Mehta, Manish Malhotra, Suneet Verma, and Shivan & Narresh.

Apart from such big names, 16 models are set to debut at the fashion event along with 39 new and upcoming designers, who will showcase their creations in the Emerging category at the Jabong Stage, one of the show areas at the event.

What is unique about this season are the four offsite shows of some of the prominent names in the fashion world. While Anamika Khanna will present her Sculpt line at the grand finale show at the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Sabyasachi Mukherjeee will open the season with an offsite show as well at Richardson & Cruddas.

Talking about the grand finale designer, Purnima Lamba, head of Innovation at Lakmé said: “On this special occasion of Lakmé Fashion Week's 15th anniversary, Lakmé is proud to showcase ‘Sculpt' - our fashion forecast for 2015. Anamika's craftsmanship lends itself seamlessly to bringing alive this cutting-edge trend forecast at the grand finale.”

Another offsite show will see designs by Bollywood's beloved designer Manish Malhotra. His show, titled The Blue Fashion Runway Show, will be sponsored by WEvolve. It will launch the organisation's global campaign to empowers young men and women to challenge norms that lead to gender-based violence. The best runway faces, popular celebrities and leading personalities from will unite on this global cause while celebrating the promise of a better future.

“We at LFW believe that fashion has a larger role to play in society and for our country. Over the years, Lakmé Fashion Week has always taken the lead in standing up for social causes, from The Mai Mumbai Show in 2009 to the Blue Runway Fashion show the coming season. Being a global fashion platform, we take immense pride in lending a voice to such social causes,” added Dhankar.

The business aspect will also be buzzing.

While buyers will range from those in India, Middle-East and Europe, Dhankar says this time, they have expanded the "database by reaching out to an even larger set of buyers from IMG's global network, including Berlin Fashion Week and Sydney Fashion Week and are approaching new e-commerce retailers".

"These are some initiatives we have taken to meet our long-term objective of democratizing Indian fashion," Dhankar said.

An increase in interest from boutique owners in tier-II cities like Nagpur, Surat, Goa and Ahmedabad, has also been witnessed.

LFW will also mark the debut of a fast growing European fashion house Tom Tailor in the Indian commercial market. It is coming in partnership with Jabong this season at Lakmé Fashion Week Summer/Resort 2015. They will present an urban-chic collection.

Another international brand, Miss Bennett will present its summer-resort collection at the fashion gala.

Adding more spark to the gala will be the glamorous Gauri Khan, wife of superstar Shah Rukh Khan, showcasing a special Satya Paul summer-resort collection.

Continuing the trend of supporting of Indian textile, known designer Raghavendra Rathore will showcase his regal collection to close Indian Textile Day, a unique property pays tribute to the rich heritage of Indian hand-woven luxury every season.

Designers like Anavila Misra, Deepika Govind, Ghosh, Soumitra Mondal, and Shruti Sancheti among others will present India's indigenous textiles in varied silhouettes.