Recently, designer Marc Jacobs’s spring line for 2012 was stolen during transit from Paris to London. The designer even offered a hefty reward for the missing pieces and tweeted an alert, “See any chic truck drivers cruising around Europe dressed in #SS12 Collection? Get a pic & call 212-343-0222. Reward.” Reportedly, fashion accessories and outfits worth $65,000 were lifted from a courier van delivering it at a London store. This incident has raised a very important question on the security of expensive designer outfits, specially while transferring from one country to another. We check with our desi designers on how do they go about transferring their collection from one part of the globe to another.
Designer Leena Singh of the duo Ashima and Leena, who has done many international couture shows, says that declaring the actual value of the goods may be more expensive but a wiser move for getting right insurance. She says, “We usually have our printed tags on our boxes while transferring heavy outfits, so that our packages are identified at once. One has to be really careful, while sending couriers. We also try to be sure and not compromise on the cost. For a designer more than the monetary aspect, it’s the loss of designs and creations that can’t be compensated.”
The security measures and proper maintenance of ensembles during transfer is of prime importance for a designer. Designer Reynu Taandon says that it is important to have an insurance with the real value because each garment is like a piece of art. She says, “If you declare the right price at the custom and bring it back, then there is no problem. To carry garments from one place to another is difficult, sometimes each lehenga is for 30 kgs and if you are taking 10-20 couture pieces from one place to another then there’s too much extra baggage. We have to take assistants and staff to keep a check on the pieces and that’s added cost for security.”
Designer Jai Singh, of the duo Parvesh and Jai, says, “It is a big hassle to take couture garments from one country to another. Designers usually don’t declare the actual cost of the outfit to save taxes. Also very costly goods involve a lot of custom formalities and it takes too much time, so sometimes in order to avoid more paper work, we don’t give out the real price. We have our trusted couriers and if there’s a bigger consignment to be sent abroad then they take care of the formalities, insurance etc.”