Why Delhi fashion shows now lack showstoppers

The last season of the (then) Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week made news for, apart from the clothes, the fact that it had very little celebrity presence on the ramp.
Celebrity showstoppers for the spring-summer season included Sania Mirza for Ritu Pande, Aditi Rao Hydari for Payal Singhal, Monica Dogra for Kanika Saluja, Koyal Rana for Joy Mitra and Arjun Rampal for Rohit Bal’s finale. At the time, designers had talked about how celebrities can sometimes be a distraction in an event that is otherwise strictly business.Celebrities on the ramp was a Mumbai thing, they said, and looks like that trend is here to stay. The recently-concluded Amazon India Fashion Week had an unprecedented number of showstoppers – one. Sonal Chauhan walked for Nikhita Tandon on day four, and the rest of the week did what it was meant to – focus on the clothes. Shraddha Kapoor and Sushant Singh Rajput did make an appearance during the week, but not as part of any show. From the extra cost to the attitude that Delhi doesn’t really care about celebrity showstoppers, designers explain this trend.
I was shocked that only my show had a celebrity
Nikhita Tandon, the only designer to add a bit of Bollywood to the fashion week, couldn’t believe that that happened. She says, “The day after my show was a big shock when I read somewhere that Sonal was the first showstopper for the week. That shocked me like crazy because I don’t have a habit of going and watching other shows, unless it’s by someone who’s really close to me. The only show I watched was Pallavi Mohan’s. I had no idea that this time, there were no showstoppers at all. Till the last minute, I kept asking my friends, ‘do you think the other two designers who are sharing the show will have someone? Do I have to share some celebrity room? Do I take some permission for that?’ Because no one discloses their showstopper till the last minute, I thought maybe I’ll get some shock later on.” She adds, “I don’t think a collection only becomes popular because of a celebrity. Of course that’s important, and some people do get noticed because of this, specifically when they’re starting out.”
“But some people get noticed for other reasons, too. It’s not a hard and fast rule that you have to have a celebrity, but some collections need it. Mine was a red carpet collection, so I was very sure that I would want someone to walk for me. It could be possible that Delhi designers feel that they’ve been there, done that, that it’s an overdose. They might think that people know their collection now so maybe they don’t need it anymore,” Nikhita adds.
Showstoppers are attractive, but also very costly
Anju Modi, who has had actresses like Tabu and Madhuri Dixit-Nene walk for her at couture weeks, doesn’t believe in spending money to get showstoppers on a business platform. She says, “It’s very attractive to use a showstopper, I won’t deny that. People are always saying ki business hai toh showstopper kyun karna, but there’s a reason for saying that. Showstoppers cost money and they will not come unless there is either some kind of friendship or some kind of gratification. So, since this is a business platform, I feel that it’s not logical to spend that kind of money and call a showstopper and create a media hype, because, at the end of the day, the consumer is smart.” Couture Week, however, is a different ballgame. “Couture is meant for luxury. So, Kangana Ranaut or Priyanka Chopra or Deepika Padukone has that kind of star power because they are into the luxury segment. So they become your showstopper when you want to show that you are in that segment. Having said that, I always call showstoppers because of my personal friendship with the star. You can say that I am using my friends to get star power, but if it requires money, I don’t believe in that. I am an intelligent businessman. My clothes are the stars,” she adds.
No showstopper unless the sponsor needs it
Namrata Joshipura, who had Kareena Kapoor Khan walking for her finale at the Lakme Fashion Week in 2013 and Kangana Ranaut walking for her finale at the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week in 2014, had a show sans a Bollywood showstopper this season. She explains, “I’ve had showstoppers twice in my life – once in Lakme and once in Wills. When you’re doing a finale it just goes with the territory. So it’s understandable, because it’s something a sponsor wants you to do. But when you’re presenting your collection purely as a look for the next season, I don’t think there’s the need for a showstopper. Your collection is strong enough. Plus, the finale this time at the AIFW with 25 designers was grander than any showstopper could be. Not just me, most designers are just concentrating on the business aspect and on presenting pure fashion. If you notice, the quality of designers showcasing at this fashion week is such that they have traditionally not used showstoppers. It’s more and more about seasoned fashion. I’m extremely glad that it’s moved in that direction.”
In Delhi, people don’t care if you have a celebrity showstopper
Payal Singhal, who had Tamannaah Bhatia walking for her show at LFW just four days before her show at AIFW, got Aditi Rao Hydari to walk for her last season in Delhi. She says, “I always base the showstopper on the collection. If I have someone in mind who goes with the theme, only then do I go for a celebrity showstopper. Just four days before my show in Delhi, I did a show in Mumbai where Tamannaah walked for me. These shows were just four days apart and I couldn’t immediately think of anyone who clicked with what I was showing in Delhi. What happened last season was that Aditi was the perfect fit. She’s a good friend, she was in Delhi, so it just worked out. But Bollywood is to Mumbai what politics is to Delhi. So in Mumbai, the front row will be actors and actresses. In Delhi, the front row is all ministers and important people from the government, so the geography also plays a part. And also the attitude is that in Mumbai you kind of need it and in Delhi people don’t really care if you have a celebrity showstopper or not.”
A celebrity would have killed this season’s collection
Samant Chauhan was planning to get Vidyut Jamwal for his show last season, but ultimately the dates didn’t work out. This season, a celebrity showstopper was not in his plan at all. A little girl opened his show instead. “I thought that a celebrity showstopper wouldn’t go with my collection this time, which was called Rajputana Kumari. The inspiration was Nepal, so we wanted a confident little girl to open our show. We worked hard to find one, and finally got Nunu (who opened the show) through an agency. She’s a professional who’s done many ads. She was supposed to be the face of our collection. If we’d got a showstopper this time, it’d have killed the entire thing. That was the intention, but next fashion week we’ll get a celebrity showstopper for sure,” he says.
Published on 10/4/2015