The Business of Fashion

The Brit Pack | Published in Vogue India

Over dinner at Milan Fashion Week last February, I got to talking to Bandana Tewari, Fashion Features Director of Vogue India, about the renewed energy in London fashion. Naturally, her first question was what Indian designers were doing to contribute to the London scene, particularly as India continues to emerge for a centre for world-class design.

The result of our conversation is this Vogue India article on Indian designers based in London. While writing the piece, I got to know three Indian designers with three amazing stories, each of which started in India and subsequently took them all over the world, until they finally ended up in London.

Between them, Ashish Gupta, Saloni Lodha and Aseef Vaza have lived and worked in Toronto, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Florence, Paris and New York -- bringing quintessentially cosmopolitan energy to London's design and fashion community.

Aseef Vaza | Combatting copying

An article in Friday's Women's Wear Daily highlighted the ongoing battle that young designers are having in preventing their designs from being copied by much larger mass-market rivals. Hence, the CFDA in the United States is spearheading The Design Piracy Prohibition Act, to protect the designs of American fashion designers for a period of three years and impose a fine of at least $250,000 for a successful conviction of fashion copyright infringement.

While the law is still far from being enacted, the high-profile discussion has shed new light on the scale of the problem. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimated that $12 billion was lost due to counterfeiting and piracy in the fashion and apparel industry in 2006.

With formal legal recourse hanging in the balance, sometimes designers have to take matters into their own hands. Aseef Vaza, whose shapely clutches have become a must-have for London's fashion insiders, is one example.

Everyone's talking about: Limited edition luxury

Walk down Madison Avenue in New York, the Bund in Shanghai, and avenues Montaigne and Georges V in Paris, and you will see the same luxury stores teeming with the same luxury products. No matter where you go, there are Balenciaga bags, Jimmy Choo shoes and Dior Homme suits on offer.  It's no wonder then that everyone's talking about limited edition products from established companies like Neiman Marcus and Martin Margiela to start-ups like 20ltd and couturelab. Customers, it seems, are looking for something a little bit special.

The phenomenon has the fashion business media chattering too. The Financial Times covered the phenomenon over the weekend with a particular focus on men's luxury products and this week, WWD gave us a laundry list of limited edition collaborations to show the degree to which scarcity is proliferating as a perceived selling point for luxury brands. The Business of Fashion has been in the fray as well, exploring the renaissance of haute couture and the unappealing ubiquity of Tory Burch and Goyard in Upper East side styletribes.

So, is there a viable business model here?