Style Trends - Lakme Fashion Week - Colored Pants

We saw them on the runways across the world. So it's no surprise at all that the pants have acquired colors on the Indian style scene too.

I really feel that this trend brings in a real freshness to fashion, as I often find myself bored with pants, and color brings such a welcome change to an old piece of clothing. As with all fashion trends, however, this is one style that should be adapted with caution. Being heavy bottomed, I'd go with darker, more neutral colors, rather than wear a neon that screams, "fatass"! Colored pants also call for simpler styles. You want just one trend to take precedence at a time. Clean lines and styles add brownie points to color worn well on your legs.

Lakme Fashion Week - Black and Gold

Black and gold seem to have an ever-lasting partnership in Indian fashion. This time, they found new grounds for their union. From classic silhouettes, to flowing forms, the color duo made its presence felt across the fashion week shows. A rare, urban sophistication has, fortunately, found its ground in this trend's renewal. Too severe by itself, black finds a softer accent in gold. And gold, left alone tends to become sheer bling, but black tones it down and adds depth.

Loving these looks from the Lakme Fashion Week Winter Festive shows.

Lakme Fashion Week - Fall Trends - Color - Pink Passion

It has red as a parent, but it's softer, less violent. Pink is reformed red, as the designers would have you believe. Pink was a recurring theme at the Lakme Fashion Week in all its sweet and sophisticated avatars. From Archana Kochhar and Rina Dhaka, to Drashta, Vivek Kumar and Vj Balhara, the designers unleashed Pink Power in all its hues. Blush, coral, flesh, flush, fuchsia, hot pink, magenta, raspberry, rose, and salmon strutted down the ramp, displaying the versatile side of pink, from playful to glamorous.

Combined with grey, black, blue, green and beige, the pink flaunted its glory, gaining a sharp edge it's often denied. Here are some of my favorites from the Fashion Week.

What do you think of the trend?

Lakme Fashion Week - Preview - Rohan Arora

He looks like your regular geek boy, with glasses. The kind when you see in a Rom-com, you know is going to transform into the college stud who will finally walk away with the girl, the basketball trophy, and the million dollar prize money on the random lottery he bought from a creepy friend who was, in fact, trying to cheat him.

And Carrie would approve of him.
Did anyone say shoes???

He designs shoes. Shoes that make you do a double take, and then make you gape. Then you realize that it’s rude to stare, and you find yourself thinking that you are not half as cool as the kind of person that wears the kind of shoes that Rohan Arora designs. But that’s wrong, you see. For the kind of shoes that Rohan Arora designs make people, even your regular college geeks who do NOT walk away with the girl, look cool.

Rohan, a Kolkata based designer, started the label “Rohan Arora” in 2008. Whatever he might say was the reason behind it, I believe that the REAL reason he started designing shoes was because he realized that there was a definite vacuum where great shoes, with an awesome sense of style married to a quirky sense of humor should have been. He knew that many a high end shoe closets were missing the kind of shoes that put an end to all conversation, when their wearer enters a room. Because these shoes command a new string of conversation: about them. About how intricately crafted wooden heels that look so stunning can also be very comfortable. About how sterile modernization can never ever beat the dying art of shoes made by hands.





Some shoes from Rohan's past collections

For this year’s collection, Rohan has designed 16 stunning pairs in a collection titled “Leela”. Irreverently fusing street-style fashion inspirations with vintage charms, he took almost two months to get the perfect look for his unusual creations: wooden heels with delicate Nakashi work on them, adorned with fun trinkets that make your feet do a waltz with joy. Rohan got his skilled artisans to create the timeless Nakashi motifs like peacocks, abstract flowers, butterflies, parrots and fish on the heels, to make his collection timeless.

Despite being created from wood, the blocks and wedges are incredibly tough, being made of mahogany, an extremely durable wood that renders itself well to Nakashi. For the uppers of the shoes, Rohan has used screen printed and block printed corduroy. Sheep skin lining, supposed to be the softest and the best inner lining, is just one of the fine details that make Rohan’s shoes a must-have for every fashionista worth her two pedicured feet.

Tomorrow, on the final day of the Lakme Fashion Week, Rohan will send 16 sets of happy feet down the runway. I can bet that as soon as the show will get over, the conversations will start. After all, who can stop talking about shoes like that! I think I can hear Carrie scream with joy.

A design from "Leela"

Lakme Fashion Week – Day 3 – Vj Balhara

I am thinking cupcakes and cheese cakes. And dreamy, flowing silhouettes in ethereal, form defying details. Vj unveiled 25 stunning creations from his collection “Age of Innocence”, and celebrated defiantly, the return to honest-to-goodness designing. Making a tongue-in-cheek styling statement, by adorning the models’ hair with colorful cupcakes and cheesecake slices, (his stylist wife Cynthia’s contribution) Vj brought out his characteristic drama, never taking himself too seriously, yet knowing what women want from his fashion statements.
A welcome trend that I have seen in Indian fashion, at least in collections created by designers determined to take Indian fashion to new grounds, is the lack of “bling”. Usually, you take heavy fabrics, put tons of embroidery, sequins, thread work, and you have a collection. Fortunately, Vj does not take that path. Sure, there was cut daana, pipe work and mukaish in her collection. But they were there merely to complement the elaborate fabric detailing that has become Vj’s forte.

Using Chanderi and brocade with ethnic motifs, Vj enthralled the potential buyers and fashion followers alike, with aqua, hot pink, and vibrant green mixed with grey, olive and cream. Silhouettes varied from floor length dresses and smocks to long skirts, chogas and tiered diaphanous tunics. Sheer and fluid fabrics like chiffon, cotton, mull and plisse materials with hints of gold motifs made this a collection every woman would go to bed dreaming of.

The show opened with a white tiered gown with brocade bodice and a patched hem. A grey tiered mini with green lining, drop crotch pants with a flaring top and cropped jacket, a flowing grey and fuchsia outfit, a powder blue full length floor-sweeper teamed with a bolero, and a fluid, vibrant green outfit were among my favorites. Waistcoats with interesting lapels and detailing in soft pastels were recurrent in the collection, teamed with kurtas, gowns, and dresses. The show-stopper was a shimmering gold cape over a plisse smock gown, a fitting finale to a dazzling collection.
So, Day 3 of the Lakme Fashion Week is over. I know I am really behind on the reviews, but madness has unfolded, and you all will soon have all the Indian fashion trends reports soon. For now, I am craving one of Cynthia’s super-adorable cupcakes. For my hair!

Vj and Cynthia Lim Balhara - Creating "The Age Of Innocence"

He is as energetic and flamboyant as his collections. She sort of hides behind her silken soft hair, and smiles like a little girl in Wonderland. They are one of my favorite couples in fashion. She is the driving force behind his creative vision. He is the young, good-looking fashion designer known for juxtaposing classic silhouettes with an unique contemporary edge. Vj Balhara and Cynthia Lim Blahara work together yet again to bring out a collection that in the designer’s opinion, made him strip his creative core to the bare basics – The Age Of Innocence.

Vj with Cynthia (In black)

Typically, a fashion show is no big deal. Take a sheet of paper, cut open a vein, and slowly bleed to death. Well, kidding! A designer collection is a result of months of grueling labour, late nights, galleons of coffee, frustration, false starts, and apprehensions. For Vj and Cynthia, it’s just another day at the workshop.

For the uninitiated, Vj is one of my favorite Indian designers, and is fast becoming a force to reckon with in Indian fashion. I admire him for the unique brand of fiery panache that he brings to an otherwise slightly clichéd Indian couture. While Vj toils to bring his creative vision to life, Cynthia’s inputs are what gives his collections their unique identity. Whether it’s the colorful birds adorning the models’ hairdo, or silver plates and Oriental hairstyles for an ethnic Indian collection, Cynthia’s styling of Vj’s runway collections gives them the drama and extravagance that is essential and integral to fashion.

But what makes this designer’s work close to my heart is that he lends a part of himself to his collections. Vj is real, and grounded, yet suffers no fools quietly. And Cynthia, despite her quiet and reserved demeanor, is a freewheeling thinker, and explorer. Which is why even the most hard-wired critics cannot dismiss Vj’s collections as glorified “bridals”. If designing for an Indian woman, and drawing from Indian influences, rather can steal “western trends” can tackily and hastily be labeled as bridal, then Vj surely is a culprit. For he designs for a woman who isn’t afraid of flaunting her heritage and culture. In true fashion sense, Vj Balhara is a bit of a rebel.

For his Winter-Festive collection, Vj has played with Aristocratic influences fused with Bohemian playfulness to create full length tiered dresses, cocktail dresses, skirts, blouses, and wide legged pants. Throwing caution, and strait-jacketed designing rules, to the wind, Vj has created anti-fit garments replete with bizarre color-blocking. This time, he went on a destructive mode, driving his team up the wall when he refused to settle for anything that did not perfectly match his vision. He states sheepishly, “I’d like a design for a dress, and then after a couple of days, I could not bear to look at it. I would rework it, and transform it into a completely different design.” He adds that he has eventually ended up with as many designs in his storage as he will have on the runway. Some creative process, that!

It’s a sign of his own brand of innocence that Vj still gets anxious about his collections. Having spent countless hours over the 25 creations that will be unveiled on the runway this Friday, knowing Vj, he is perhaps already in two minds whether he has done the best he could have. And knowing Cynthia, she is just quietly busy styling the collection with her own mark of raw quirkiness. And you all know me; I am waiting in anticipation, wondering what this duo’s emotional power, fuelled by fantasy and rebellion, has in store for the fashion hungry.







Cynthia's creative influence can be seen in the unusual styling of Vj's collections