Out of 110 designers, 70 will put up their stalls and the rest will showcase their collections on the ramp during the five-day event organised by the Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI) at Pragati Maidan.
"This time we are focusing more on the Japanese buyers as it is still a virgin market for us. We have good presence in US, Europe and Paris but not in Japan. So we are getting six important Japanese buyers and I am sure that our designers will impress them," FDCI president Sunil Sethi said.
This year 100 domestic and 75 international buyers are participating in WIFW.
According to Sethi, the event is also an ode to the coming together of the design fraternity. Last year, due to the fragmentation within the industry a new fashion body — Fashion Foundation of India (FFI)— had emerged and started organising its own fashion week called Delhi Fashion Week (DFW). Leading designers like Rohit Bal and Tarun Tahiliani showcased their designs at DFW. Now with DFW nowhere in the picture, the 14th edition of WIFW will see all designers participating under one umbrella.
Also the spring-summer 2010 season of the fashion week will see a grand comeback of three designers —Ritu Beri, Suneet Verma and Ashish Soni who had stopped showcasing at the WIFW long ago.
Talking about the presence of Hindi film stars at WIFW, Sethi said: "We want to focus only on the business aspect but we also welcome Bollywood. At the same time, our concentration is more on clothes and designers."
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