Once again, I’m in Mumbai...it must be Fashion Week! Sitting in the NCPA for many hours, walking the booths, dining and sociali-sing way too late in the evening, getting into my hotel room never earlier than 2 a.m., trying to recollect and describe a week of beautiful clothes, great potential, wonderful parties, exquisite homes, new shops, some disappointing collections, repetitive advice, making new friends, enjoying the old ones, celebrating my birthday and observing more changes for everything that is India today. I think it can be a book…but I’ll try to summ-arise it all in one go....

I can always count on seeing clothes that I love at Lakme Fashion Week (LFW), both on a personal level and a professional one. There are so many talented designers showing here and a promising crop of GenNext and Emerging Designers. They have given LFW a boost and mission and they all deserve the support of the entire fashion community.

This season’s breakout new collec–tion from Aneeth Arora and Chinar Farooqui for GABA had our international contingent in and out of their booth all week…admiring the modern and fresh take on classic Indian shapes and dresses in the lightest of layers of black and white checks and stripes. Promising and expensive new looks exclusively in soft white knits and woven fabrics came from Manish Gupta. Anuj Sharma continued to display his intellect and acumen in creating an entire collection based on one piece of fabric bordered with grommets. Wrapped and folded in an astounding number of ways and fastened with wire coils and leather straps, he wowed us all with his ingenuity, simplicity and implicit modernity.

From the tried and true, consistently good collections were presented by Sabyasachi, who chanelled Frida Kahlo to produce a total package where the set featuring clotheslines strung across the theatre, the shadows they formed, the music, the clothes, the hair and make-up all worked together perfectly.

Nandita Mahtani showed an immi–nently wearable collection of zebra-striped kaftans and tops. Nachiket Barve created a beautiful collection of coats and dresses with all-over appliqué cut outs of florals and patterns. He also listened and learned from the advice provided and had the perfect look books, price sheets (in dollars, pounds and Euros), style numbers and delivery dates…. He is ready for business!

Anand Kabra continues to impress and will definitely go places, along with Vineet Bahl who we can count on each season! Rakesh Agrawal knows his sexy customer well and how to do business too. Anupama Dayal is still refreshing, but needs to push herself and stretch further, Sonam Dubal takes us on a lovely Asian journey and Krishna Mehta knows how to dress us well.

What did occur to me this season, and became very clear to me after so many trips to India, is something that is essentially a ‘cultural’ trait. And while it is part of what I love most about Indians, it is also not helping our industry move forward as effectively as it could. Everyone (well mostly) is really nice here. When friends at home ask ‘Why do you like India so much?’ I constantly tell them, ‘Everyone’s so nice, the people are friendly, generous, very open and warm, and they become your friends rather quickly.’