India Shining may be a banned phrase in certain circles these days, but fashion is certainly not one of them. Prada, the Italian fashion house with a $23.5 million turnover, is saying it with a campaign that centres on the peacock feather, symbolising luxurious queenliness. Giorgio Armani, the multinational company with an annual turnover of $1.6 billion, is underlining it with silk jodhpuris. Donna Karan is using dirndl skirts with the appliqué work that you would find at Janpath or Fashion Street, except that they are in subdued European colours.

PICTURE SPEAK

MYSTIC MASS: Sheen. Gleam. High beam. The eastern look was hot at the IFW, as seen in Shantanu Goenka's creations.

Meet India, global fashion's latest muse. If India is engaging with the world with a new energy in business, trade and software, fashion, contextual by nature, is paying tribute to the new India in the language of kantha, cotton and tie-and-dye stockings. Armani made the Nehru collars go international. Designers like Oscar de la Renta have always been inspired by India. Others have used India as a back-office for embroidery. But the bold new statements coming out of top global designers are more pointed than ever before. Last season at the Milan Fashion Week, Roberto Cavalli, whose over-the-top style has landed him the title guru of glitz and an annual turnover of Euros 147 million, used the Taj Mahal as a backdrop and sent out yellow skirts with a mirrorwork "disco" belt. Roccobarocco made an equally bold Indian statement on the same platform, with Bollywood digital prints on white shirts.

The global fashion retail world is sitting up and taking notice. At the just concluded sixth Lakme India Fashion Week (IFW) in Delhi, along with Saks Fifth Avenue fashion director Michael Fink, Maria Luisa of Paris and Villa Moda of Kuwait, was Jason Broderick, eveningwear buyer for Harrods, London, in the front row. "A lot of interest is generated towards anything India," he says, citing the Cavalli-goes-to-the-Taj collection. "The response to shows centring on India has got Harrods here, to fulfil the demand for clothes with Indian influences."

PICTURE SPEAK

IT'S ALL IN THE BAG: At an Alberta Ferreti store in London (above), a belt at Bloomingdales, an Emma Hope bag

Consider, for instance, this season at Bergdorf Goodman, the high-end New York store. The windows are aglow with designers inspired by India, from silk and gold embroidery by Anna Sui to cotton skirts with Rajasthani gota work by Roberto Rodriguez. While Louis Vuitton's mannequin in a cotton canvas skirt is adorned with metallic sequins and silk flowers, Bloomingdale's windows sport skirts that Jean-Paul Gaultier designed after a visit to Rajasthan.

PICTURE SPEAK

STREET TO STORE: A kurti and skirt (left) at the Zara shop, and a heavily detailed jacket (right) from Biya, both in New Yorka

In the contentious US presidential elections of last November, outsourcing to India was a bone of contention between the two candidates, but a Bush victory put the seal on this debate, reinforcing the shift in business focus towards India. Aru Kulkarni, president of the Liz Claiborne Apparel Group, says, "I think this whole India thing has been simmering." The image of India is changing-from a country ravaged by poverty to an economic powerhouse and a multicultural society. Add to this a post-Clinton downtime in the US economy. As Cindy Rakowitz, producer of fashion shows, puts it: "Fabric from India is inexpensive, reflecting the soft economy of four years. Even if Prada or Chanel mark up their "Indian" lines, they still reflect the financially modest American or European."

PICTURE SPEAK

SILKEN CUT: Cavalli's flared kurti with accessorised Ganesha (top); and Emporio Armani's churi-pants (below)

But in its newest avatar, India is not just about outsourcing great embroideries. Domestically, the designerwear market accounts for about 0.6 per cent of the organised apparel market, worth around Rs 20,000 crore, but the Indian design sensibility has begun to speak a contemporary language of monogrammed bags and "twisted" tie and dye, in tune with the much-publicised profile of its "young spenders" and a growing middle class with expendable incomes. "The image of India has certainly changed," says Broderick, "For instance, 10 years ago we wouldn't have come looking for a designer statement." He found it not just in eveningwear, but unexpectedly, he says, in the ready-to-wear collections, from wash techniques to surface embellishments incorporated into contemporary cuts, making them clothes that "are rooted in the local culture, something I did not expect". A knee-length quilted jacket in mustard by Manish Arora with military detailing struck him as "very Britney Spears".

The decade-and-a-half-old Indian fashion industry's forays into world fashion are by no means overpowering, but they are not insignificant. Where once the only Indian labels sold internationally were Abraham and Thakore at Liberty and Abu-Sandeep at Harrods, both London stores, over the past few years, designers are participating in trade shows, discovering markets from Switzerland to Kuwait, making it to high-street boutiques and selling in racks alongside Marc Jacobs and Valentino, giving their designs a certain validation if not the adulation that the mass volumes of a fashion house-backed designer would command. Rajesh Pratap Singh may have had to bow out of a legal battle with

PICTURE SPEAK

ASHISH SONI: Puts Indian techniques in a western perspective and pays attention to finish. Has sold to Selfridges in the past. Won good reviews at IFW this year.

Prada (the group forbade him to use his label Pratap in Europe because it sounded like theirs), but he can execute a resounding creative comeback with his twist to the regal bandgala, making it resemble a garageman's overall with his stained and washed techniques.

Even as UK's store Monsoon, with its celebration of Indianness, introduces a refined elegance to bright palettes and sophisticated silhouettes with strapless dresses, straight and embroidered or full with ruched bodices and sari borders at the bust, the current Indian moment is nothing like the 1960s hippie movement. Then fashion borrowed from India to make an alternative statement of flower power. When India emerged on the international runways in the late '90s again, it was in a kitschy interpretation-prints of gods on T-shirts, a trend that got Cavalli into trouble with Hindus when he used it on bikinis. Madonna was the early ambassador for the new marketable spiritual India, with her endorsement of ashtanga yoga, mehndi and brocade. When fashion worldwide celebrated a return to the past with its tribute to vintage clothing, Gaultier used brocade, as did Prada and D&G. Indian designers, who by then had come under a common platform with the formation of IFW were to benefit from the interest, even though some were incensed by Galliano's interpretation of fantasy and kitsch, which they thought was so lacking in depth that they felt it "made fun of India". When the over-the-top Bollywood Dreams played at West End, a first ever Bollywood promotion was hosted at Selfridges in 2002-3 where 10 Indian designers got orders. The event made close to a million dollars. Says Suniel Sethi, the Selfridges agent in India: "The store was more than happy with the promotion, which also generated great publicity."

PICTURE SPEAK

MANISH ARORA: Introduced quirkiness and fun to contemporary Indian design. Retails at Maria Luisa, a Paris store known for backing rising stars. RAJESH PRATAP SINGH: Is a technique-based designer who gives a twist to chikan and other traditional skills. His clothes have a high wearability factor.

A short-lived fad, thought everybody, before going back to the business of selling from trunks. But no. While kitsch continues to have a niche market worldwide, the Indian influence has also moved into boho chic, the dominant narrative of this season. Indian patterns, motifs, petticoats, wooden bangles and vintage jewellery are an integral part of the global luxury bohemia. Says Elizabeth Pederson, designer and womenswear buyer, Selfridges, who has come in looking for possible repeat orders after the successful Bollywood promotion run: "There are silhouettes that are now associated with India, like the tunic top, but while we look for Indian influences, it can be something totally different."

In the new fashion era of sophisticated superfemininity, whose best example is the stylish Nicole Kidman's use of kundan set in chandelier earrings or It girl Liz Hurley's sporty kurtis, a refined India is presenting itself to the world. The references are less literal, though still very much in a cultural context, as seen in Anamika Khanna's mosaics and mixing of yarns.

PICTURE SPEAK

SABYASACHI: Uses Indian textiles and puts them on to separates in a very original manner. Shipped 200 pieces to the edgy UK store Browns last season. ANAMIKA KHANNA: Is backed by Boho, a London-based company. Began retailing at Harrods, UK, this year. This IFW collection got her a thumbs up.

After the first impact, going beyond the obvious is the large statement that Indian fashion in India is pushing for. While a young designer like Arora was instrumental in merging elements such as a gota hem with a loud heart motif, the discovery of 2001, Sabyasachi Mukherjee, is so subtle in his influence that it is not obvious except to the trained eye. Steeped in textile, he puts together his vegetable dyes with plush velvet in a new way, earning the appreciation of a "serious" store like Browns-an important fashion address in the UK known for setting off a spiral effect in retail-as opposed to a more commercial store like Selfridges which would lean towards sequinned bikinis and pop art tees. Saks' Fink, returning to India for the second time, says of the designer: "His is a look I have never seen before."

Also gaining approval this year from the Front Row That Matters (as opposed to the side of the front row reserved for the air-kissing set) was Ashish Soni, who has been consistently working on his white-on-white techniques and treating Indian embellishments in a western way, and Monisha Jaising's elegant cocktail circuit interpretation of casual tie-and-dye. "There is a lot of subtlety in India that people are missing and we should focus on our textiles because it is an advantage that nobody else has," says Sabyasachi.

PICTURE SPEAK

CATWALK COLOURS: (From left) An Ashish Gupta creation, Armani's skirt at Milan and Mohapatra's winner for J Mendel

As Indian designers rise to the challenge of the Indian moment, the clash of commerce and creativity, traditional and modern and the obvious and the subtle are among the many subtexts that marked IFW like never before, even though the design copyright war between Aki Narula and Suneet Varma got more media attention.

Some are likening the strong Indian influence to the Japanese movement-Japanese techniques, contemporarised by local designers permeated global fashion, culminating in the famous "Japanese Revolution in Paris" in the 1980s, when designers Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo stormed France and changed the vocabulary of international fashion.

PICTURE SPEAK
BEAD THIS: Varun Bahl and Monisha Jaising designs with Rohit Bal's extravagant minimalism (right)

But the comparison may be a bit like putting the cart before the horse. The Japanese were backed by a strong domestic market and infrastructure, hardly a reality with Indian designers. Corporates in India have not taken the designer bait, and most of the sales still come from trousseau wear. In fact, there is also some debate on whether the fashion week started before or after the right time. New York Fashion Week, for instance, was formed when names like Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan were established, and it only gave them a collective platform to interact with the media and buyers. In India, only one designer has 16 stores, and that's veteran Ritu Kumar. J.J. Valaya, who showed a well-appreciated Tintin-in-Tibet line at IFW this year to create a distinctive market position for his diffusion label Studio Valaya, is among the more established labels, albeit with only seven stores.

PICTURE SPEAK
COLOUR CONTRAST: Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla go white-on-white while Namrata Joshipura celebrates colour (right)

Another school of thought believes that Indian designers have missed the boat-with India opening up and FDI in retail waiting to happen, foreign labels, with their big pockets and enormous backing, will bombard India, leaving local designers crippled. Already, the super sporty brand first discovered for India by Bollywood, Tommy Hilfiger, is here as is Chanel and the multi-billion dollar luxury conglomerate LVMH. Versace waits in the wings. In the neurotic world of designers, there is a conspiracy theory that the trend of Asian elements has to do with fashion eyeing developing markets in order to woo them.

STAR POWER

Kitsch Cool Like with everything else, the revival of the Indian moment gained momentum with celebrity endorsement. An early ambassador was Madonna, with her mehndi patterns. If Bombay Dreams gave Indian kitsch a boost, Monsoon, UK, uses Jodie Kidd (right) to endorse their dresses with sari borders. Classic Chic The hottest celebrity endorsement of India today may be by Liz Hurley, whose Indian boyfriend is the ultimate fashion accessory, but Nicole Kidman with her vintage Indian jewellery pieces comes close. The Amrapali store got attention when its designs were seen in Troy. While the kurti made an appearance in Meet the Fockers, Enrique Iglesias did it a great service when he wore it in a music video.

Despite the debate on the future of Indian designers, especially in the environment ahead, there is a consensus that Indian design can no longer be dismissed. The kurti and the churi pant silhouettes have gone global and India is being addressed by everything from Zara's high street to Armani's couture.

Indian designers are offering their own perspective to the trend, with Rohit Bal presenting exquisite skills from Kashmir and Raghavendra Rathore dipping into history to show a Samarkand line, appreciated for the quality of fabric and clean lines. And while young British turks like Mathew Williamson become known for being India-inspired, even hot new US designer Zac Posen borrowed heavily from India in his "tribalite" line. Not surprisingly, new stars of Indian origin have emerged. Among them is Ashish Gupta, who impressed the competitive London Fashion Week, and Bibhu Mohapatra, who, as design director of the French house J. Mendel, supervised an India-inspired a transformation of the company.

Chaos, colour, joy. That's India. Competitive, confused but talented. That's the new Indian designer. The industry's ability to somehow organise its skills and talent will largely determine if India will make the shift from being a global fashion moment to being a fashion movement.

-with Anil Padmanabhan in New York and Ishara Bhasi in London

Index