Lakmé Fashion Week announced the 29th batch of one of its most coveted talent discovery programs - Gen Next. The four selected designers presented their creations at the upcoming Summer/Resort ‘20 edition. The programme this season, received over 300 applications by aspiring designers from across the country. The 4 winners were handpicked by an esteemed jury that comprised the likes of Amit Aggarwal, Tina Tahiliani and Gen Next mentor Sabina Chopra among other industry experts.
Akhil MNagpal, Chandrima Agnihotri, Ananya Modi Jain and Abhishek Sharma were the desingers showcased their collection this year. Here's what they had to say about their collection.
Akhil Nagpal - Mumbai
"Hold me tight, set me free is a lyrical way of putting across, how things that are structured are held together, they stand when things are held tightly or set loose so that is the underlying philosophy/ physics of how ...structures work, that kind of physics translates through our clothing as well. The very important aspect of what we're trying to do as a brand is to reinvent Indian handcrafting techniques."
Photo by Viral Bhayani
Chandrima Agnihotri - Noida
"The essence of my collection is cross-cultural folk. It's a celebration of a lot of folklore. My collection is inspired by a typical kind iof embroidery that is done by the Jat tribe of Kutch, which is based on the cross-stitch. So it's a lot of colour in the embroidery, a lot of texture. In order to give it a very global feel, I've mixed it with a different kind of folklore, which is inspired by the Eauropean lace cutwork."
Photo by Viral Bhayani
Ananya Modi Jain - New Delhi
"ALL2DEFY is not a brand but it's a conversation inspired by youth culture. We talk about gender equality, body positivity. And this drop is called ‘Woke Up Like This’, something that inspires people to be confident, to just wake up and go out, be yourself. We've used a lot of prints and collective embroideries which have been developed in-house and a lot of hard work detail. Everything has a lot of detailing, every stitch and every label has been thought out."
Photo by Viral Bhayani
Mannat Sethi and Harshana Kandhari - New Delhi
"A lot of research a lot of forethought has gone into our collection. There's great responsibility where there is rubber, that we used from early purposed tires. They're processed, cleaned, hand-cut by our jari kaarigars. Rubber strips are very close to us! You'll see a lot of chikankaari in our collection. We normally see it in traditional Indian clothing, we've contemporized into non-traditional motives and used it here."
Since its inception, the Gen Next mentorship programme has been celebrated for identifying new talent, providing young designers with a nurturing platform and turning them into formidable stars. In the past, the program has been credited with introducing talent some of the most well-known names in the industry like Kallol Dutta, Rahul Mishra, Ruchika Sachdeva, Nachiket Barve, Masaba Gupta and many more.
