Pieces of paper, a splash of colours, fabric, unbleached yarn, a handful of buttons, dried leaves, empty tender coconut shells… name it and everything somehow became a part of the design. Students pursuing fashion design, art and management who had come together at the National Institute of Fashion Technology campus for the first Fashion Olympiad last week put everything they laid their hands on to good use.
At different venues of the sprawling campus, one could find students gathered in small groups, sometimes arguing if an orange-yellow colour palette should override a green-blue palette to represent a tropical holiday. These were students taking part in a visual merchandising contest, choosing from the two topics — tropical holiday and retro revival.
Kavya and Kavya Jha are busy putting together a resort wear ensemble against a beach setting, represented by food, drinks and clothing. A few feet away, Shivani and her friend are decorating a bicycle with colourful props. Tender coconuts and other props in pink, orange and red are being worked upon. A stark departure from the play of colours is Kumar Shashwat’s retro revival set up. In between placing a paper microphone on a make-believe stage of a concert, he says, “I am using images of gramophone and an old-fashioned telephone to take people back to the era of Charlie Chaplin.”
The Nift Fashion Olympiad saw students involved in a fashion marathon over two days, testing them for creative and time management skills.
A quiz contest, photography contest click-o-mania where students captured fashion trends in the city through their cameras and a large fashion wall that had pieces of art put together by students with the use of different textile techniques were all part of the event.
In the atrium, we spotted Ruchika designing an innovative ensemble that made use of buttons designed from cola caps. The outfit didn’t require the use of stitches.
Manisha, working with the concept of Midnight Garden, used a mixture of textile yarns and draping techniques to design an outfit without stitches. Elsewhere, Pranaya designed a canvas of an ethnic woman, using layers of different textiles.
Even junk was put to good use to arrive at wearable art pieces or metallic installations in the campus.
