Twice each year, concurrent with the two annual fashion seasons, the entire industry comes together to present its Prêt-a-Porter (ready-to-wear) lines to a focussed target audience. Globally recognised as ‘Fashion Week’, you have New York Fashion Week, Milan Fashion Week, or Hong Kong Fashion Week. It forms the highlight of the season’s fashion calendar in any country, and has been proven effective worldwide for close to a century now. It is an opportunity for the entire industry to collectively showcase the upcoming seasons’ collections to trade buyers (retailers, buying houses, distributors, wholesalers, agents, potential franchisees), the media and individual buyers. The concept is successful because it benefits everyone involved: designers are provided with a single platform to unveil their upcoming collections to their potential customers; trade buyers attend a single event to preview, plan and order their lines for the next season. The event is also a platform for the media, which acts as the main channel through which the latest trends, designs and colour coordinates are communicated to a wider target audience.

Unlike individual ‘couture’ fashion shows, which showcase a one-of-a-kind designer collection, the focus of a fashion week is more trade-oriented, where the clothes showcased are representative samples, which can then be produced in larger quantities and various sizes for sale through multiple outlets. Hence, the event takes on a more ‘serious business’ orientation, as compared to the more ‘dramatic/theatrical/social’ slant of couture shows.

• Lakme India Fashion Week – The Inception

Historically, India has been globally acknowledged as a country for its rich textile heritage, but fashion design as an industry is young but growing at a very fast pace. Over the last 4-5 years, post the inception of Lakme India Fashion Week in 2000 an increasing number of people/industry sectors have joined the designer/ fashion industry or have shown serious interest in the Business of Fashion (designers, textile designers, models, make-up artists, hairstylists, stylists, photographers, real estate owners, venture capitalists, corporate etc.).

With the recent growth in Indian Economy and the GDP crossing the 8% mark, in regards to the Fashion Design Industry there is a certain need for affordable pret-a-porter clothing, pricing between Rs. 500- 10,000 and readily available. No reason, we are seeing and witnessing a boom in the Retail Sector and the consumption to match it.

Lakme India Fashion Week 2004 will continue to focus on The Business of Fashion, and will showcase two collections- Pret- a- Porter ( ready to wear) and Diffusion (a line between ready- to-wear and trousseau/couture). The objective of LIFW 2004 as in the past will be to create business relationships and to facilitate a dialogue between designers and trade buyers. This year the theme would be "Join the fashion movement".

There is a lot of excitement and interest in the Indian Fashion Design Industry from both domestic and global target audience. Hence, it becomes imperative to concentrate on the Fashion Design element and so will be the case this year with more emphasis on designers, their collections, Models and Hair & Make up etc.