Lakmé Fashion Week Ushers New Talent and Initiatives at Winter/Festive 2012

   86 designers and 10 sponsors participating in Winter/Festive 2012

·         Kallol Datta and Pankaj & Nidhi - Lakmé Grand Finale Designers

·         LFW continues its endeavor to celebrate Indian weaves and crafts

Mumbai, Tuesday, July 10, 2012: This season Lakmé Fashion Week (LFW) is all set to bring new energy to the runway and maintain its leadership in promoting the Business of Fashion. Today, Lakmé Fashion Week, which has placed Mumbai on the global fashion map, announced its 86 participating designers & 10 sponsors for Winter/Festive 2012. In its thirteenth year, Lakmé Fashion Week continues to be the leader in recognizing creative excellence, creating opportunities for new talent and providing the most commercially relevant platform for sponsor collaborations.

Through the years, LFW has played a pivotal role in nurturing talent and grown in numbers, season on season. The upcoming season brings together an exciting line up of 86 designers from across the country to showcase their collections. As thought leaders and pioneers in promoting the business of fashion in India, LFW has set new trends, created best practices and taken the lead on digital for the industry to follow.

Highlights of Lakmé Fashion Week Winter/Festive 2012:

¡        Indian Weaves & Crafts: In a continued endeavor to support and pay tribute to Indian textiles, LFW this season will be taking Indian textile day to newer heights. This season, LFW brings together industry veterans Jaya Jaitly, Darshan Shah, Maximiliano Modesti, Rta Kapur Chishti and Wendell Rodricks for workshops, demonstrations and panel discussions while Krishna Mehta returns as a curator for the day. All designers participating on this day will showcase Indian weaves and crafts to extend their support to this unique initiative and help bring the dominance of Indian textiles and crafts to the fore. Winter/Festive 2012 will also see LFW presenting an award for the designer who best incorporates Indian weaves and craftsmanship in their collection

¡        Lakmé Grand Finale: The Lakmé Grand Finale for the first time will see fashion visionaries Kallol Datta and Pankaj & Nidhi as the grand finale designers. They will interpret the ‘Lakmé Absolute’ collection for the Lakmé Grand Finale

¡        Gen Next Celebrates its 7^th Anniversary: The Gen Next program, which completes 7 years this season, has encouraged debutantes and nurtured some of the leading names in the industry today.  Renowned Designer and Stylist Aki Narula will continue to mentor the Gen Next program. This season, 7 extraordinary designers from across the country will showcase their debut collections

¡        Talent Box: Preview Shows at ‘The Source’: Celebrating its one year anniversary, the international concept of mini preview shows at the ‘Talent Box’ will witness 18 designers participating this season

¡        Industry Stalwarts in Attendance: Winter/Festive 2012 will bring industry doyen Pallavi Jaikishan for the first time on the LFW runway alongside other industry stalwarts like Wendell Rodricks, Neeta Lulla, Anita Dongre, Krishna Mehta and Ritu Beri

¡        Installation Art: This season fashion week will be “celebrating the incidental magic of monsoon” through artistic installations across popular venues all over the city as well as onsite at “The Source” and in and around the venue. These LFW installations will transmit the fashion fervor and celebration of talent across Mumbai

¡        INIFD Presents Lakmé Fashion Week’s Fashion Workshop Series - Edition VIII: The 8^th Edition of the Fashion Workshop Series (FWS) will focus on the business of fashion and understanding the needs of a buyer. The session titled “The Business of Fashion from a Buyer’s Eye” will bring together two key stakeholders on one platform - buyers and designers to share key insights into running a successful business. The session will be moderated by Sujata Assomull, Launch Editor Harpers Bazaar India

¡        Live on LFW TV: LFW TV will continue to live stream shows from LFW Winter/Festive 2012, allowing potential buyers, sponsors and fashion enthusiasts, to gain real time access to shows, behind the scenes action, exclusive interviews, and parties and much more into India’s premier fashion trade platform. Tune in on www.lfwtv.in

Each season, LFW focuses on meeting the ever-changing demands of the Indian fashion industry while engaging all our stakeholders - designers, buyers, sponsors, media and talent. Taking this prestigious event ahead and making it even more enterprising is LFW’s strong line-up of committed partners that have played a significant role in making this event a grand success.

§  Continuing as the Associate Sponsor for the fifth season, is one of India’s leading Mobile Services providers - Aircel

§  As LFW’s longest running partner, DHL continues its support as the Official Logistics Partner of Lakmé Fashion Week Winter/Festive 2012

§  Rejoining as Co-sponsor is Official Natural Mineral Water Partner, Himalayan

§  Joining the family as  Co-Sponsors are Official Car Partner Volvo Auto India  and Official Real Estate Partner Sankpal Realty

§  Blender’s Pride continues to be one of our Co-Sponsors this season, along with Forever Jewellery, the Official Jewellery Partner

§  INIFD – Official Knowledge Partner and Presenting Sponsor for the Fashion Workshop Series; Kingfisher – Official Good Times Partner continues their support and Grand Hyatt, Mumbai remains the Official Hote

 

Present at the occasion, Purnima Lamba, Head-Innovations Lakmé said, “Lakmé’s finale designers are hand-picked for being fashion visionaries - a reflection of our commitment to forecast the future of fashion. The beauty business works hand in hand with trends in fashion and Lakmé Fashion Week showcases the creative flourish of established and emerging designers. The Lakmé grand finale is the pinnacle fashion statement of the season and we work closely with the designers to inspire a collection for fashion-conscious women across India. I am very excited to see the re-interpretation of the Lakmé Absolute collection - with a fresh creative perspective by Kallol and Pankaj-Nidhi.”

Sharing her views, Anjana Sharma, Director - Fashion, IMG Reliance said, “I consider it an honor and my proud privilege to be able to present yet another path-breaking season of Lakmé Fashion Week. Buoyed by extremely positive industry feedback and overwhelming business conducted at LFW Summer/Resort 2012, we are now resolved to make the upcoming season even more successful with a formidable mix of relevant designers.  Our endeavor as been to demonstrate intent on taking the fashion industry forward on the path of growth. As we bolster our efforts to integrate India into global fashion, we would like to thank all our partners for their support and valued insights that make Lakmé Fashion Week what it is today and promise to deliver growth and positively impact the ecosystem around the fashion industry.”

Designers for Lakmé Fashion Week Winter/Festive 2012

Lakmé Fashion Week Winter/Festive 2012 Designers
Aartivijay Gupta	Pallavi Jaikishan
Aastha Bahl	Pankaj & Nidhi
Abhi Singh	Payal Kapoor
Abhishek Dutta	Payal Khandwala
Amrita Thakur	Payal Singhal
Anita Dongre	Pernia Qureshi
Anushka Khanna	Pia Pauro
Archana Kochhar	Pooja Kapoor
Atithi Gupta	Pranav Mishra & Shyma Shetty
Babita Malkani	Prashant Chauhan
Bhairavi Jaikishan	Priyadarshini Rao
Debarun Mukherjee	Rajat Tangri
Deepika Govind	Ritika Bharwani
Drashta Sarvaiya	Ritu Beri
Gaurang Shah	Roma Narsinghani
Isabelle Mittal	Ruchika Sachdeva
Isha Dangwar & Priyanka Rai	Sailex Ngairangbam
Isha Kedia & Deepak Goswami	Sanchita Ajjampur
Jatin Varma	Sandhya Garg
Kallol Datta	Sapna Bhavnani & Sukriti Grover
Kapil & Mmonika Arora	Shivan & Narresh
Karishma Shahani -Khan	Shradha Murarka
Ken Ferns	Shruti  Sancheti
Khushboo Agarwal & Prem Kumar	Shyamal & Bhumika Shodhan
Komal Sood	Siddharth Arya
Krishna Mehta	Sonaakshi Raaj
Mayank Anand & Shraddha Nigam	Sougat Paul
Meera and Rohit Aggarwal	Surya Sarkar
Nandita Thirani	Swapnil Shinde
Neeta Lulla	Swati Jain
Nikhil Thampi	Tanya Sharma
Nimish Shah	Vaishali Shadangule
Nishka Lulla	Wendell Rodricks
Nupur Kanoi	Yogesh Chaudhary
Accessory Designers
Felix Bendish	Nivedita Mukherjee & Swarup
Jyoti Kant	Rohan Arora
Kaabia and Sasha Grewal	Sannam Chopra
Mehak Gupta	Sourabh Kant Shrivastava
Neha Sharma	Vasundhara Mantri
Nitya Arora
Gen Next Designers
Aniket Satam	Mehak Pruthi,Kanika Seth and Ankit Sharma
Asa Kazingmei	Richa Aggarwal
Astha Sethi and Sidharth Arora	Sneha Arora
Kavita Sharma

Block your dates for Lakmé Fashion Week Winter/Festive scheduled from August 3 to August 7, 2012 at Grand Hyatt, Mumbai

About Lakmé Fashion Week:

Lakmé Fashion Week (LFW) is jointly organized by Lakmé, the No.1 cosmetics and beauty services brand in India and IMG Reliance, the global leader in fashion weeks and event production. LFW has been conceived and created with a vision to “Redefine the future of fashion and Integrate India into the global fashion world”. LFW is organized twice every year. LFW Winter/Festive 2012 will be held from August 3 to August 7’ 2012 at Grand Hyatt Hotel, Mumbai. For further information log on to http://www.lakmefashionweek.co.in

About Lakmé:

Contemporary Indian beauty expert Lakmé continuously innovates to offer a wide range of, high performance and world class color cosmetics, skincare products, and beauty salons. In addition to leveraging Unilever’s worldwide expertise, Lakmé also partners with the leading cosmetic house Milan-based Intercos Italia, Schwann Stabilo Germany and Paris-based Fiabila. Combining international cosmetic technology with an in-depth understanding of the Indian woman’s needs, Lakmé also offers its consumers a comprehensive beauty experience through its products and services at the Lakmé Salons and Studios. For further information log on to www.lakméindia.com

About IMG Reliance:

In 2010 Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), India's largest and most recognized private sector company, and IMG Worldwide (IMG), the world’s leading sports marketing and management company, announced the formation of an equal joint venture to develop, market and manage sports and entertainment in India. The joint venture company, IMG Reliance Pvt. Ltd., will create and operate major sports and entertainment assets in the country.  In its first initiative, IMG Reliance entered into an agreement with the Basketball Federation of India (BFI) to create a new professional basketball league and manage all aspects of the commercial rights to the game in India. IMG Reliance signed a 15-year agreement with the AIFF, to improve, popularize and promote the game of football throughout India, from the grassroots to the professional level.  IMG Reliance has also created a scholarship program to identify and train talented young Indians from sports including - basketball, soccer and tennis–at IMG’s world-class sports training facilities at IMG Academies in Bradenton, Florida.

About IMG Fashion:

IMG Fashion is dedicated to facilitating a gateway to the fashion world - from creation to consumer. We offer solutions that seamlessly connect and associate fashion’s key constituents and corporate brands using IMG’s global resources, influence and expertise. Within the fashion industry IMG represents the world’s top models, leading designers and the most influential photographers, art directors and stylists. The division produces the leading fashion events around the globe and represents many of the industry’s top organizations and federations as well as works with various local and national governments, creating regional and international fashion platforms. For more information on IMG and its business visit www.imgworld.com