Indian Fashion Designers

Gaurav Gupta was born in India in 1979. He studied fashion design at Central Saint Martins London. His graduate collection was awarded the Future of Couture trophy at Altaroma Altamoda, Rome Couture fashion week. At the Mittelmoda fashion awards he was presented with the Roots of Creativity title. Working with designers like Hussein Chalayan and Stella Mc Cartney followed. Gaurav has been showing at India Fashion Week for five seasons and will now take his work to Tranoi in Paris. He started his label in India in 2006 and with his debut collection, was seen as an overnight success and a breakthrough designer. His initial designs worked around contradictions like beautified military, broken dresses, flowing transparent jackets and constrcuted drapes. Greek gothic and baroque influences followed giving not just India but fashion at large a fresh idea. The Italian trends and design journal Creativita lists Gaurav among designers who will set global fashion trends. His combining of jerseys with satins, chiffons and suiting, fabric and three dimensional embroideries have created a look that is hard to place but is reminiscent of something future primitive. Gupta works very closely with lines and the motion of fabric. He has also shown his work with installtion artists and musicians. While Gaurav's sensibility is swiftly finding appreciation at stores that value authenticity and opinion in India, Europe and America, his work is parallelly being seen as a movement in art.

Manish Arora originally trained in commerce in Mumbai, but found neither the subject nor the city triggered his imagination. Looking for something more personal and creative, and with no prior experience of design, he turned to film for inspiration for his first collection of clothing. This influence continues to impact on his, not only in the rich saturation of color and surface decoration, but also in the sense of drama and narrative he employs. Each collection is a deeply personal story, drawn from his environment and that of his immediate circle. For Arora, his collections are 100% about India - both a love for it and a sense of humor about it. What he succeeds in doing is translating that passion in such a way that his garments are neither pastiche nor costume, arguably as a result of his awareness of international trend.