Fashion students take centrestage

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It’s difficult to make a mark in this world of cut-throat competition. And thus, when the final year students of fashion designing from all over India participated in the recently concluded The Debut by Wills Lifestyle, they knew they will have to put in their heart and soul in to the collection that they will put up to showcase.

The competition, an initiative to recognise fresh talent, saw participation from 340 fashion students from the country. Students from fashion schools including National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), National Institute of Design (NID), Pearl Academy, Northern India Institute of Fashion Technology (NIIFT), Amity School, Noida and J. D. Institute of Fashion Technology competed with each other at the regionals at Kolkata, Bangaluru and Mumbai. And the top fourteen were selected for the grand finale at Delhi.
Mridul Jacob from Pearl Academy, Chennai, who won the competition, says that during the initial regional round, he had just seen the collection of 12 students. “And even then I knew it’s going to be a tough road ahead as everybody had come up with amazing ideas,” says Mridul, who never thought he would end up as a winner.
Mridul’s collection, “Saddle Up” was for the working men who cycle their way to work. “I tried to come up with something that is trendy yet wearable,” says Mridul, who got good feedback from the finale judges — designers Namrata Joshipura, Nitin Bal Chauhan and Sartaj Mehta. “They were happy with my work and said I’m headed in the right direction.”
However, Anubha Jain from Pearl Academy, Delhi, who became the runner-up, thinks that her idea was a winner from the beginning. She comes from a baniya family and has always seen the women of the house in traditional saris. “While I love the look, I really feel uncomfortable imagining myself in a traditionally draped sari,” she says.
Hence, she came up with a line of denim saris. “Denim, as a fabric, is trendy and chic. A modern young women would never mind draping a sari made out of it,” she remarks.
Other students too came up with remarkable ideas. Mridul says that he really liked the designs by Raunaq Arora from NIFT, Hyderabad, who played with punk to come up with a trendy line.