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Nandita Basu show at LIFW
Day one of the Lakme India Fashion Week
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Nandita Basu |
Nandita Basu’s collection
simultaneously evokes a sense of sensitivity, anger and quiet but determined
rebellion against all that is wrong with society. She uses her understanding of
texture and surface ornamentation to communicate her annoyance in a collection
that comprises of fantastic jackets, sexy pants and skirts, and thought
provoking T-shirts.
Basu creates lean land ong
jackets, bomber jackets, sleeveless vest-jackets, and dress coats with exquisite
seam detailing in tone on tone colours. She cleverly manipulates leather into
paper cutwork patterns- like strips of a Chinese lantern, eyelets and floral
patterns, besides using unhampered suede shapes as blouses. The pants were
mostly track bottoms with tie-ups and knit cuffs at the hem, and sporty strips
along the side seam length. Her skirts were in sexy slim shapes, trimmed with
leather and quilted panels, and in vibrant colours like mango green, orange and
tomato red, as were her fitted one-piece dresses in ivory. The
star pieces of her collection were her t-shirts, which were used as canvas to
express her reaction to society’s evils, be it riots, corruption or brutality.
The prints of people involved as well as the newsprint like text struck a chord
with everyone.
Basu’s accessorized her
collection with vibrant and amusing footwear- patent leather sport shoes with
pencil heels, canvas shoes made into ankle-tie shoes and winkle pickers.
Truly a collection for the
thinking woman of today.
The Rina Dhaka show
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| Rina
Dhaka |
Sexy, sassy, and very fun, Rina
Dhaka presents the James Bond girls. The look was strongly one of fearless
glamour, razzmatazz and crazy evenings on the beach doing the wild stuff. Dhaka’s
collection was lusty in its flesh toned and ivory capris, bra tops, skirts and
cat-suits. The focus was on slinky body fits achieved through stretch knit
skirts that skimmed the waist and then erupted into gorgeous volumes. Little
ra-ra skirts were worn with tights and easy blouses. A party driven 20s mood
came through in her dresses, all jazz music inspired sequining and fringing,
with some Paco Rabanne style metal chain-mail looks. She topped it with a range
of dresses and skirts that looked like granny’s dresses had had a closet
affair and got naughty. They were made of a myriad of antique looking fabrics
patched together and embellished with laces, sequins, and plenty of glitter. The
colours of this range were classic - ivory, sage, lavender and old rose. Her
acknowledgment to winter was a range of jackets, pants and skirts in ivory with
melted chocolate embroidery and appliqué .
Dhaka’s collection’s
strength was its excellent texturization. There was beautiful sequining in
silver and gold done into fish scale perfection, use of gold shimmer which is
very strong for Spring-Summer 2005, delicately compact mushroom-underside like
pleating and joyously colourful patchwork enhanced with wool baubles and
seaming.
Also, she focused on the back-
by making all of them bare, cleverly mixing an element of 1930’s Hollywood
glamour with racy spy- girl pizzaz. That’s Dhaka doing her thing.
Abhishek Gupta at LIFW
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Abhishek Gupta |
Abhishek Gupta creates for the
man who’s intense, doesn’t like to go with the flow, and largely does his
own thing. His collection was about conveying an attitude of being off-center
and raw edginess, with Gupta creating a collection comprising of cheeky T shirts
with an understated sense of humour, suits that weren’t quite serious, sporty
jackets, and exquisite modern sherwanis.
The T’s had a distinctly
retro feel to them, largely due to the quirky prints of dollar bills, comic book
characters, calligraphy, and oriental motifs. The colour palette had a sense of
nonchalance, with browns getting teamed with oranges and azure blues, and
maroons pairing up with lime greens and cornflower.
The
suits appeared randomly deconstructed and then playfully reassembled, with seam
detailing that was liberating in its execution. Various kinds of jackets and
coats were also part of his repertoire, made of wool, felts, cottons, denims etc
and bearing detailing like rib panels, zippers, raw seam finishes, and defiant
appliqués of marijuana leaves.
Of special note were the
sherwanis – lean, quilted, and in hitherto unimaginable colours like cobalt,
and red, these Indian jackets were contemporary and trendy. The quilting was
finely detailed and well patterned, as were the slimming silhouettes. The pants
that were created to go with these were both easy fitted and lean, and often
made of gold-shimmer denims.
Like the mojo of music, Gupta’s
collection was deep and thought provoking.
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