The Van Heusen Indian Mensweek (VHIMW) 2011 is kicking off from the 2nd of September till the 4th of September 2011 at The Grand. The list of participants is impressive but the best thing I feel is that FDCI has been right in keeping the Mensweek compact as a 3-day affair. 5-Day event would had necessitated adding up random designers to fill the slots. Wish the organisors of Lakme Fashion Week (LFW) becomes wiser and eliminate some worthless designers who make it to the event just to fill in the slots. Payal Kapoor’s collection was one of the most horrendous one I have seen in years during LFW Winter/Festive 2011.
It’s good to know that Karan Johar + Varun Bahl are doing the Grand Finale of VHIMW 2011. Just praying that K Jo leaves all the designing and creative aspect of the collection on the able hands of Varun Bahl and stick to do what he is best at – being just the face of the label.
However one show I am really-really looking forward to is the show by the quartet of Abraham & Thakore, Abhishekh Gupta, Rajesh Pratap Singh and Rohit Gandhi + Rahul Khanna on the penultimate day of VHIMW 2011. Four great designers together in one show would be really interesting. Hope Abhishek keeps away from the ‘Grunge’ look’ though!
The penultimate day ends with Ashish Soni who showed a FAB collection during VHIMW 2010. Ashish, you got to raise the bar higher this time!
One week ago I had no idea what or who Vanessa G was, except that our very own talented designer Ashish Soni has been engaged by Vanessa Gounden as the Chief Design Officer. But the launch show of Vanessa G at the Banqueting House at Whitehall was monumental.
From Vanessa G website I discover she has a background in, well, pretty much everything; Vanessa has worked in or owns businesses in trade unions, mining, healthcare and finance to name just a few sectors. However, as far as I can tell, she has no background in fashion and that makes me believe that the Autumn -Winter 2011 collection has to be entirely Soni’s creation. By the way the entire Vogue India team was flown in for the night!.
Veuve Clicquot flowed incessantly with DJ: Sophie 
Ellis-Bextor turning up the heat. All this added up to one hell of a fashion show The art-inspired floral prints, particularly the red and green garden-print silk blouse and the one-shouldered looked nice. The collection had coats, shift dresses and trench coats with prints of fantastic landscapes, flowers, flamingos and zebras and embroidery such as jewels and beads.
The post show party had few well dressed celebrities scattered in the crowd. Jade Jagger, Connie Huq, Emilia Fox and Poppy Delevigne grooved to Sophie-Ellis Bexter and her hubbie’s tunes from the DJ booth.
Folks I have some real spicy news for you from the ongoing Men’s Week in Delhi.
Varun Bahl was very upset with a journalist of a National Daily because the scribe did the interview with him on the K JO+Varun Bahl collection for VHIMW but when the story appeared it was all about Karan Johar. We all know that the label K Jo+Varun Bahl has creative inputs of Varun and charisma of K JO. But it is sad that the media is so Bollywood struck these days that anything beyond Bollywood becomes insignificant. Varun Bahl is definitely justified to be angry. The scribe could have interviewed Karan Johar instead.
Media concluded that Robert Vadra was the muse for Ashish Soni’s look at the VHIMW. You know why? Well because the models wore a pencil line moustache that had resemblance with Robert Vadra’s moustache. Ashish Soni is rather flummoxed and laughed it off. But just think how stories are created by media. India’s First Family’s Son-in-Law is the muse of Fashion Designer made a great story so they created it. Any other moustached buddy of Ashish Soni wouldn’t have made such headlines.