Bangalore Fashion Week- Day 3

Crossing the Line, that's what Delhi's Jattinn Kocchar had named his collection. Not a stranger to BFW, Jatinn's 'line' can be interpreted in many ways

Bangalore Fashion Week- Day 3

Jattinn Kocchar
9.30 pm

Crossing the Line, that's what Delhi's Jattinn Kocchar had named his collection. Not a stranger to BFW, Jatinn's 'line' can be interpreted in many ways. It could mean the zebra stripes that were almost omnipresent in his collection, or the clean lines that made each and every piece in his black and white collection regal yet simple. The expectations from a finale designer is huge, and Jattinnu00a0 didn't disappoint one bit.

Jattinn Kocchar takes a bow with Shibani Kashyapu00a0u00a0Pics/ Sanjay MD

He brought retro back, without being partial to a single decade from the past. So while you saw the polka dots of the 60s breaking the monotone in some of his stark black dresses, they was soon followed by the 80s floor mopping elephant pants in disco fabric. The baby doll dresses from the 60s and 70s were accentuated with a big bow worn on the hair.

In a fitting tribute to the LBD (little black dress for the uninitiated) of Breakfast at Tiffany's,u00a0 Jattinn created a short ebony number with a racy halter back that brought back Holly Gollightly on the kaleidoscope etched ramp. While George Michael's Too Funky played on the giant screens at the back, the black and white numbers made us revisit an era that was known for its grandeur in fashion. An extremely creative collection and a fabulous show stopping act by crooner Shibani Kashyap who sang her chartbuster Zinda Hoon Main in a Marylin Monroe-esque white dress, made the show memorable even though the collection was not created exclusively for BFW.

Devipriya Guha
7. 30 pm
The black moment of the day came with the Kolkata based designers' collection. The 24-year-old designer's forte is 'drama with high street fashion.' But copious doses of flora and bizarre colourful, small woollen balls on short dresses are not exactly our idea of street wear. We don't burn designers at the fashion stake for creating unwearable collections. Many of the masters are known for making museum pieces.

Actress Reshmi Ghose

But not only were Devipriya's clothes not wearable by any stretch of sartorial imagination, they were eye sores too. Her strange obsession with roses is something we are yet to recover from. Be it the yoke or the edges of her baby doll dresses, there was a rose for almost every dress. And they were not restricted to clothes. Some of the umbrellas that the models carried also had cloth roses. Titled November Rain, the collection required the models including the show stopper Reshmi Ghose, to carry umbrellas.

And maybe that was a good idea - they drew our attention away from the torturous clothes. A colour blocked tube dress with a broad belt below the bustline was the last straw. It had several strips of pleated cloth in colours that clashed instead of complementing each other stitched together. That's precisely when someone screamed 'Oh my God'. As for the men's line, the lesser said the better. Doesn't Devipriya know that the only man who doesn't look offensive in a sheer shirt is Salman Khan? And just when you thought you stomached that, there were suits with bad shine. Enough said.u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0

Shruti Shah
July 29, 6.30 pm
Filigree by Mumbai-based designer Shruti Shah marked a sparkling debut. The young designer certainly was the most media savvy one at the week. But good PR doesn't make good clothes, and Shruti knows that.

She was one of the few designers who adhered to the autumn/ winter colour code using deep burgundies, browns and dull gold as her colour palette. Almost every garment had an element of novelty. So while a red evening dress came with a train and an interesting back with gold filigree work, a gown came with a back cowl. Why can't more designers do back cowls? The saree- inspired gowns were characterised by generous amounts of embellishments, with some of them revved up with a jewelled cummerband.

The hottest international trend of the season, animal prints, found its place in a daring blouse and was just enough to create an impact. And there were some stark, monotone pieces too. The show stopper garment was a garnet hued shoulder baring gown with not even a dash of embellishment. Some clothes are winners by themselves.u00a0u00a0

Abhi Rahul
8. 30 pm
The most inspiring collection of the day came from the shy duo from Delhi (they didn't even come to the head ramp for the photo call).

Out of concern for global warming, the designers put out a collection with the rains as the theme. Hence the ramp had an aqua pasting and the models wore wet, tousled hair, suggesting they have been rain soaked. The show began with the sound of lashing rain and an AV showing torrential rainfall.

Naturally, most of the garments in this women's line had to have elements of blue in them. Tops with leg-o-mutton sleeves, dresses with irregular tucks and plentiful use of denims in the form of Jodhpur pants, shirts and jackets was what we saw. Even in terms of styling, the designers demonstrated brilliance, an area where most designers tend to go wrong. The collection was extremely wearable and the piece to fawn over was the white and blue bandhej short dress inimitable in its playfulness.u00a0

Zainub and Ashissh
Saturday July 30, 4.30 pm
One half of the designer duo won a reality design show on TV and the pair designs for a slew of actors down south including Mahesh Babu and Simbu. Maybe they should have considered having one of them as the showstopper, for the collection by itself, wasn't a crowd puller. And you can't blame the crowd.

The line was inspired by antiques, and that perhaps explains the drab sepia tone that most of the clothes bore.The men's line with smartly tailored jackets and kurtas with minimal embroidery was palatable. But the same can't be said about the women's line. The clothes lacked focus and some of them (like the all black ensemble with power shoulders) made the models look rather masculine.

Even the dress with a dripping hemline had a clumsy silhouette troubled further by a brown filigree bustier. We did like the larger than life show stopper attire that model Nioosha wore. Perhaps they should stick to making men's wear only. Frankly, the best thing about the show was supermodel Acquin Paes returning to the Bangalore ramp after aeons.

Moon Moon Brahma
5. 30 pm
This budding designer from the North East presented a beautiful silk story using Ahimsa and Muga silk, a specialty of the region. The colour palette, starting with shades of white, was muted and went on to mauves, salmon pinks, beiges and light caramel.

Not exactly autumn winter hues, but most didn't stick to the colour code anyway. The collection that featured bridesmaid dresses, shift dresses and evening dresses glammed up with ruffles redefined understated elegance. With minimal embellishment and a gold and white series perhaps inspired by the timeless mundu sarees of Kerala, Moon Moon created a collection that was high on wearability and not so intimidating.

But it was a different story for her Indian line that saw sarees and salwars. Besides bingeing on embellishments, they lacked the uniqueness of the western line. Perhaps, she should stick to western wear as that's clearly her forte. And a bolder colour pallette would also be nice the next time around. Overall, it was one of the better collections of the week and celebrated simplicity embracing it with open arms. The only thing that didn't impress us was the finishing of the garments. Most of them had stray threads hanging from the hemlines and that's unacceptable if you're showing your clothes in a fashion week.

Rocky S
10.30 pm
The world would have been a better place if designers let only their clothes do the talking. Sometimes, clothes don't make any statement or offer something significantly different on the ramp. They might not even be draped around a Bollywood bombshell who has been paid a bomb to be the showstopper. But what if they are beautiful, faultless clothes? The finale of Day 3 by Rocky S saw one such collection. Rocky is known for his exquisite craftsmanship. But what he also demonstrated was a collection that was utterly desirable. Every piece was worth snatching away from the ramp queens and making it your own.

Even if you were personally biased against a garment, you wanted to wear it, because, well, they were what dreams are made of. Rocky has perfected the art of colour contrasts like very few in the industry. A dreamy mauve chiffon saree was juxtaposed against a moss green blouse and a romantic sky blue with a simple floral motif blouse. He was lavish with emebellishments where he needed to, and played it down for the right garments.

So you had a dazzling burgundy lehenga with a silver choli for the Indian bride who still perefers to get married the traditionalu00a0 way, and there was a range of spotless white sarees and salwars that used mother-of-pearl buttons to incorporate texture. A black evening kurta came with a sheer churidar, that made it look like stockings and the evening dresses in black were spell binding. Models walked with bare faces, so the focus was on what mattered the most ufffd the clothes. This was Rocky's second show in the city in the past week. But you can never have enough of a genius.

Ankita Choudhary
6. 40 pm
Manish Arora minus the quirk and creativity is what Delhi-based Ankita's collection was like. In other words, the young designer's collection borrowed heavily from Manish's OTT colour palette, but had little else to excite the fashion watchers.

Her label Masakali had two distinct collections ufffd one was for the new-age bride and the other for the global Indian. Fuschias, emerald greens coupled with over use of sheer fabric made it a collection that was too jarring. The models wore accessories made of Gujarati mirror work on their heads that doubled up as maang tikas. The most unforgivable piece was the one that came with a mammoth orange cloth badge - much like the one that swimming or karate clubs give their members.

That killed it for us. Not only was it incongruous, but was as unnecessary as the pleated pieces of sheer fabric attached to some of the garments. The only respite was the white sharara with touches of pink and a white and pink saree draped on a trouser. Her dresses looked like over embellished kurtas that were longing for their better half ufffd the churidaar. Strictly speaking, they were kurtas in the garb of dresses and are perfect for a circus-themed party. So, even on the wearability front, it scored a zilch. A huge disappointment!