Designing inspirations

Students at the Hamstech Institute of Fashion and Interior Design recently got a crash course on what a career in fashion would look like. Beginning from creating designs to showcasing them, the students competed against each other in their annual fashion show cum exhibition held at the Convention Centre on September 1.

The prep for it began a few months ago when the students began getting mentored by ace designer Neeta Lulla. Then, divided into 32 teams of 8 members each, they began working relentlessly for the big day when they were to be judged by eminent folks from the fashion industry.

The blend of their innate sense of creativity and the genius mentorship of Neeta helped the students create a wide range of ethnic and fusion wear, which rediscovered the beauty of heritage fabrics and heritage structures, using vibrant colour palettes. Models from the city sashayed on the ramp wearing students creations that saw the use of paintings, prints, embroidery, appliqué, motifs, architecture and much more.

The winners take it all

On judgement day, Team Pastel Amour won the jury’s award for the Best Collection. And Madhurima, a member of Team Pastel Amour, couldn’t stop talking about all the hard work and inspiration that went behind their winning collection. “We wanted to highlight small artists and their works as they work in oblivion and are not recognised for their hard work. And though we took inspiration from a Singapore-based artist’s paintings, we realised it was very challenging to do justice to the paintings as well as getting the motifs alive on the sarees,” says Madhurima, who hopes to work under famous and expert designers to learn the tricks of the trade and to gain more experience.

Another interesting inspiration was Team Assemblage, which won the award for Best Innovative Collection. The collection inspired by Chinese ink and art paintings by famous artist You Si and the motifs inspired by these paintings are focal point on the garments which are done using applique work, machine and hand embroidery,  left both judges and the audience in absolute awe. But the labour of reaching that spot was anything but easy. “It was a bitter sweet experience for me as I had a hard time making the team work. I coordinated with each team member to ensure everyone came in on time for the meetings and work. Success came to us the hard way,” says team leader Anagha, who had earlier been working part-time with a designer in town. Anagha aspires to open her own boutique in a year after working full-time with another designer. The event ended with an exhibition in which the collections from all the 32 teams were on sale. The collection that sold the most won the award for the Best Selling Collection. Team Bhavyadwar, led by Aayusha Suryavanshi, took the honours. “We didn’t know that we will end up as the best-selling collection,” says Aayusha.