Lakme Fashion Week announcement press meet

Lakmé Fashion Week Announces Designers and Sponsors for Fall-Winter 2009 & Commemorates 10 Years of Fashion* From 27th – 31st March’09 at Grand Hyatt, Mumbai. Mumbai, 9 March 2009: At a press conference that saw some of the heavy weights of the fashion industry in Grand Hyatt-Mumbai today, Anil Chopra – Advisor, Lakmé; Ravi Krishnan – Advisor, IMG – India and Vikram Raizada – Head of Fashion, IMG – India, announced the names of the Designers and Sponsors for the upcoming season of Lakmé Fashion Week (LFW), a season that will celebrate 10 years of Fashion. Don’t miss the LFW Fall Winter’09 collections from 27th March to 31st March 2009 at Grand Hyatt, Mumbai, as 73 designers and 9 major corporate as sponsors, come together to set new trends in fashion and business!

Keeping up the tradition, Lakmé & IMG Fashion, over the last 10 years, continue to promote, support and nurture an extraordinary list of designers who have shown on India’s catwalks and made a mark on the industry. Lakmé Fashion Week has also been instrumental in encouraging new designers over the years, all of whom and many creative contributors have formed the DNA of our Industry.

Eight new young designers will scorch the ramp for GenNext along with eight Emerging designers and 48 Established designers. The ‘Lakmé Grand Finale’ will also see a comeback by the veteran designer Anamika Khanna.

Celebrating the spirit of fashion, season after season, sponsors like Levi’s, SkodaAuto, Westside and DHL continue to pledge their commitment to LFW. This season, LFW has also collaborated with new sponsors like Carlsberg, Grey Goose, Marie Claire, Barbie while Grand Hyatt-Mumbai is the venue and official hospitality partner.

With designer participation from across the nation, 65 will showcase on the ramp and 73 will present their collections at “The Source,” a marquee area which will take forward the “Open for Business” concept at Lakmé Fashion Week.

Lakmé Fashion Week, this season, opened for business by throwing open stall bookings to all designers, a norm that was restricted to only participating designers until last season. Lakmé Fashion Week will be showcasing Indian designers to buyers from India and Middle East besides registrations pouring in from Australia, Canada, Netherlands, Switzerland and South East Asian countries.

As an encore of last season’s success, Lakmé Fashion Week will have a Menswear Day and the Group Accessory Designer show with four designers, which were very well received by the general guests and buyer community in particular.

Announcement: Lakme Fashion Week Spring Summer 2010

Lakmé Fashion Week is also pleased to announce the dates for the following season -Spring/Summer 2010. This will be held from 18th to 22nd September 2009, at Grand Hyatt Hotel, Mumbai once again.

Speaking on the journey of Lakmé Fashion Week, Anil Chopra, Advisor – Lakmé said, “Lakmé and IMG Fashion have invested 10 years to the betterment of the overall fashion industry. Its role has grown from just a fashion event to creating opportunities that support the future stars of our industry. While we continue to encourage fresh talent to innovate their expertise on the Indian ramp, we are also opening newer avenues for the growth of their trade. We are glad to announce that LFW Spring Summer 2009 will be held from 18th to 22nd September ‘09. Our vision is to raise the profile and impact of Indian Fashion to support and develop our extraordinary Indian fashion talent for another glorious 10 years and more.”

Richa Puranesh, Marketing Manager – Lakmé said, “Lakmé’s inspiration this season is the strength of femininity that is at the heart of a woman’s beauty. While our theme is bridal sutra the bride is but a motif for the individuality, the joy of expression that dressing up brings for every woman. And the designer for LAKMÉ Grand finale is the contemporary icon of strong, individual, but always brilliantly feminine, design – Anamika Khanna.”

Ravi Krishnan, Advisor – IMG India said, “IMG Fashion, season after season, brings its international fashion expertise and applies them to the Indian scenario at Lakmé Fashion Week, elevating Indian standards to international benchmarks. To make the event enterprising, LFW associates itself with distinguished names in the avatar of sponsors like Levi’s, SkodaAuto, Westside, Carlsberg, DHL, Grey Goose, Marie Claire and Barbie. This year it’s our privilege to have the luxurious Grand Hyatt, Mumbai as our hospitality and venue partner. I would like to thank our sponsors, designers, the fashion fraternity and the media, who have been instrumental in establishing us as a premier fashion and trade event. Their continued support, valued insight and in-depth knowledge have played an integral part in cementing LFW as a leading fashion week. Their ongoing support remains pivotal to building the reputation of Lakmé Fashion Week.”

Vikram Raizada, Head of Fashion – IMG India added, “Lakmé Fashion Week has proven over the years to be a truly national fashion and trade event with designers from all across India and buyers from all over the world. This season over 101 buyers have already registered, 30 out of which are from Middle East and other International countries. Besides the Middle East, our focus this season continues to be domestic buyers as they form an integral part of the emerging Indian retail market. To reiterate that Mumbai is open for business, we have also designed a plush exhibition area called “The Source,” to create and facilitate an environment for profitable business interactions between designers and buyers.”

Sponsors for this season:

Co Sponsor Official Partner
Ø Levis Ø Carlsberg
Ø Skoda Auto India Ø Grey Goose
Ø Westside Ø Marie Claire
Ø Grand Hyatt
Showcase Partner
Ø Barbie

Designers for this Season**:

ESTABLISHED DESIGNERS ACCESSORY DESIGNERS
Abdul Halder Nachiket Barve Hersh Kotecha, Malini Kotecha, Priyanka Tejwani
Anand Kabra Nandita Mahtani Malini Agarwalla
Aneeth Arora & Chinar Narendra Kumar Shilpa Chavan
Arjun Saluja Neeta Lulla Sonali Dalwani
Anamika Khanna Nikasha Tawadey Sangita Chudiwala
Anupama Dayal Pallavi Murdia Santosh Bathija
Archana Kochhar Parvesh & Jai Priyanka Murarka
Ashish Parikh, Viral & Vikrant Pria Kataria Puri Nitya Arora
Aslam Khan Preeti Chandra Radhika Agarwal
Asmita Marwa Rahul Reddy EMERGING DESIGNERS
Ayan sarkar Rahul Mishra Anand Bhushan
Deepti Toor Rimzim Dadu Kiran Jaisinghani & Meghna Agarwal
Digvijay Singh Sabyasachi Neha Agarwal
Gayatri Khanna Shalini & Paras Nidhi Gambhir & Divya Gambhir
Gurpreet Pia Fleming Sailex NG Rimi Nayak
Jyotee Khaitan Shyamal & Bhumika Shodhan Rohit & Abhishek Kamra
Kallol Datta Soumitra Mondal Sanjay Hingu
Kaushie Adiseshan Sucheta Merh Sunaina Puri
Krishna Mehta Swapnil Shinde GEN NEXT DESIGNERS
Lecoanet Hemant Tarun Tahiliani Atithi Gupta
Lina Tipnis Troy Costa Gopal Roy
Mandira Wirk Vikram Phadnis Paromita Banerjee
Manish Gupta Vivek Kumar Shweta Chhawcharia
Manish Malhotra Wendell Rodricks Sonam Mehta
Tanvi Kedia
Tuhina & Parul Shukla
Vinit Agarwal