Go East for fashion

The new fashion markets in terms of numbers are the Middle East and India. Many Indian designers are doing well in the Middle East – among them, Manish Arora, Manish Malhotra and Rohit Bal – with their exclusive stores. The huge Indian bridal market is an area that designers can concentrate on.

Foreign stores are just buying little bits from Indian designers, while your own Indian department stores with their large chains are placing big orders. There is no point in selling a few pieces to a store abroad; these are kept in one corner with no publicity or promotion. Indian designers should be firm and confident, and only insist on nothing less than the window of the shops for their creations.

I adore Tarun Tahiliani and Varun Behl. They should try and get into places like Dover Street Market, which is a new type of retail concept from Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garcons.

Dare to be different
Designers should be eccentric. It means they are intelligent and have a brain. Every part of the body should be dressed. Even Indian designers should concentrate on head accessories. The head is the most potent part of the body to decorate. Anything that hovers around the head has potential. So, designs for the head are avenues Indian designers should consider – for that matter, everything else that need design, whether furniture, home décor, or jewellery.

The Japanese success story
From the East, only the Japanese designers have succeeded in the West because they are master technicians who work with very advanced and fabulous fabrics. Junya Watanabe, who designs for Comme des Garcons, is a master pattern-cutter and so creative in his construction that it took me a while to figure out how to get into one of his garments and how he had constructed it. He established himself in Tokyo from 1984 and then moved to Paris in 1993, launching a menswear line in 2001. If Indians want to succeed in the West, they have to live there at times.

Future is bright
I saw a lot of foreign journalists at the Indian fashion week who are interested in Indian designers. The Indian reputation in the fashion world is still not established. India is more of a manufacturer than a creator. That said, Bollywood is big news everywhere. There is a very bright future for Indian fashion and in the next five years the industry will really move forward.

The movement should be towards elegance, traditional fabrics, vegetable dyes, and natural looks. There should be human contact. Modern high-tech fabrics may sound good, but I don't know how it will be to actually wear them. People want new things all the time. It could be priced from 10 pounds to 500 pounds, but it has to be value for money and functional.

As told to Meher Castelino in Düsseldorf