It was the third day of CIFW and to be honest, we were still waiting for some haute couture. Though Vivek Karunakaran’s show on the first day started things off with a spark, the next few days began to flatline gradually. Chennai-based Nazia Syed opened the show on Saturday with her ‘Magical Morocco’ collection. Although the flowy chiffon silhouettes were in bright hues reflecting the spring – from tangerine oranges to cabaret pinks – they didn’t really catch people’s interest. The woollen embroidery work on each of Nadia’s pieces did work some charm, but the not-so-impressive makeup brought it down a notch.
The ravishing Evelyn Sharma, who is five films old in Bollywood, was Nazia’s showstopper. Explaining her work, Nazia said, “There’s a lot of Indian-ness in my designs and it’s more like an east-meets-east collection.” Interestingly, all her designs features lightweight fabrics as opposed to heavier threads.
Up next was another well-known city girl’s designs - Jules Idi Amin’s ‘Abhisarika’, was considerably better and the models did justice to her creations. Considering the focus was again on spring fashion, the packaging was a whole lot better here. Not only were the drapes wrapped creatively with glitter hose, models were made to wear white flower bands around their ankles and carry little baskets with flowers. The cobalt and hooker’s greens, ultramarine violets and burnt umber complemented the general look of the models and did the job for Jules. “Most of the pieces from my line are very wearable, and very red carpet,” Jules laughs and continues, “I am not too fond of heavy embroidery. My ensembles have simple detailing works on them and are very light fabric. Actors Mahath and Kriti Kharbanda were the showstoppers for Jules’ show along with US-based actor Christine Thambuswamy. The finishing touches for the night came with Hyderabad-based Shravan Kumar and Riyaz Ganji exhibited his line with the toast of Kollywood – newly wed star couple Sneha and Prasanna.