MUMBAI: The week long Lakme India Fashion Week 2002 which claims to be India's largest and most high profile fashion trade event saw 53 designers from eight cities across the country presented their prêt lines to over 15,000 visitors.

On the business front, over 34 foreign buyers from 17 international companies and 265 buyers from 125 domestic companies participated in Lakme India Fashion Week 2002. This was an increase of over 77 per cent from last year with 40 percent of the buyers visiting for the second time. Buyers from across India and from the USA, UK, UAE and Hong Kong, included names such as Raymond, Ebony, Pyramid, Lifestyle, Shoppers Stop, Ensemble, Origins, and Madam Butterfly from the domestic market and from the international market Selfridges, Aesthetics, Pegasus Fashion Imports ltd., Variety Silk House. The success of the event is evident from the fact that the participating designers received an average of 14 inquiries from domestic buyers and an average of three inquiries from the foreign buyers.

An official release informs that some of the big buyers such as Selfridges from UK, are expected to place an order of over Rs 2.5 crores across various designers; RCKC, London are expected to place orders worth Rs 1.7 crores; Sanskrit from Dubai for over Rs 18 lakhs. The favoured price points too emerged clearly. As per feedback from the designers and buyers, the largest orders were seen placed around the price points of Rs 2000 and Rs 5000 per garment.

Another significant achievement during the Lakme India Fashion Week 2002, was the unveiling of the trend book by FDCI. The book titled FDCI trendsindia-Winter 2002-2003 will go a long way towards establishing backward linkages with the textile industry as well as promote forward linkages with the distribution and retail sector. Some other highlights of the event include the launch of two new memberships by FDCI - Preliminary and Corporate. FDCI claims to have received more than 100 applications during the week itself.

Visitors at Lakme India fashion Week 2002 were not just exposed to the latest prêt and diffusion collections of the various designers but also attended seminars and panel discussions. Interactive in nature, these seminars touched upon issues such as development of Prêt, trend forecasting, design differentiation in apparel brands creation of designer label and evolution of fashion journalism. Among those addressing these seminars were Aniruddha Deshmukh, Executive Director, JK Ansell (Raymond) and the Head of BE, Fazle Naqvi, Director - Marketing and Merchandising, Indus League, Dilip Cherian, Consulting Partner, Perfect Relations, B S Nagesh, CEO, Shoppers Stop, John Singh, Chairman, Anokhi and Gary Newman, Head of Buying, Westside.

To grow the industry and broadbase its appeal, FDCI this year involved fashion design students in various events to provide them with encouragement and learning. This included a fashion quiz contest called Fashion Grill'02 in which students from four fashion design institutes from across Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Delhi participated. The event took place at the Taj Palace Convention Centre in New Delhi.

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