India’s fashion industry is starved for innovation

In India, the Global North and, before that, Eurocentrism have been convenient pegs to hang every failure to innovate or revolutionise. We haven't got our due only because the world is against us.

- Nishtha Gautam

It always has been so. This persecution complex is a potent amalgam of the unwillingness to think beyond instant gratification and the colonial legacy of mass production for the mothership.

Almost all of our industries ail from it, and fashion is no different.

Our aesthetic expectations from our fashion stalwarts are so low that even a change of format draws accolades. This Gordian knot of subpar demand and supply in terms of innovation is particularly tragic in a country that gave the world some of the finest textile and embellishment traditions.

When our A-list designers conceive “new” ideas, chances are they are borrowed belatedly from their western counterparts. Whether it’s the silhouettes, colours, or even the show choreography, the curse of derivative design is upon us. The few exceptions in our fashion firmament prove this rule. And, mostly, they are the enfant terrible of the scene.