Couture kitsch puts Indian fashion designer on the map

Fashion designer Manish Arora at India Fashion Week.

NEW DELHI (AFP) - With his unapologetic use of contrasting colours and decidedly-Indian style, designer Manish Arora is drawing international attention to the country's fledgling fashion industry.

The 33-year-old, back from a successful stint at London's Fashion Week, was one of the most sought-after designers at India Fashion Week, which ended Sunday.

He paraded his models in voluminous skirts and empire-line dresses with motifs of London landmarks and garishly-painted Indian gods, leaving buyers gushing.

"It was just fabulous. When you read between the lines, there are some very beautiful pieces," Chantal Rousseau, from US store Bloomingdale's, told AFP.

Arora, who was voted India's best designer by experts in a poll for news weekly Outlook magazine last month, got similarly glowing reviews in the British press after his last outing in London.

Though two consecutive shows at the London catwalk have sealed Arora's reputation, his rise to fame has not been as sudden in India, where the launch of his label in 1997 was positively received.

In a current campaign for sports giant Reebok, Arora wears a pair of psychedelic shoes

"Don't like my designs? You don't have to," Arora is captioned as saying.

It sums him up very well.

A line of T-shirts emblazoned with Indian graffiti -- one of which splashed: "You are not allowed to urinate here", had New Delhi's rich and famous lining up to buy the Manish Arora label.

Another T-shirt read: "Jack and Jill had sex."

The designer followed up on his penchant to shock with subsequent collections: one had skull motifs, while another line had lizards, prompting a fashion writer to ask, "What next? Faeces?"

Arora's designs reflect his eccentricity, which he wears on his sleeve literally: the tattoo on his arm says Ladies Tailor, in a reference to signs on low-brow tailoring shops specialising in salwar-kameezes and sari blouses.

There are two piercings on his eyebrow, and unlike the more well-heeled who choose luxury cars to get around, Arora prefers to drive the bulky Ambassador, a British Morris Oxford knockoff from the 1950s.

His pared-down label is called Fish Fry, roadside Indian English for fried fish, and his shop interiors are often done up to resemble the gaudy colours of Indian trucks.

Critics, some of whom have expressed outrage at his designs, say his ability to turn the low-brow from Indian streets into high fashion sets him apart from his peers, whose mainstay is predominantly bridal gowns, and who are often dismissed as mere wedding tailors.

"If you want kitsch India, contemporary India, Manish is the person," says Sunil Sethi, a buyer for Britain's Selfridges chain.

Arora's former boss and designer Rohit Bal, who handpicked him as his assistant from New Delhi's premier National Institute of Fashion Technology, says Arora's strength is his brazenness.

"The best thing about him is that he is absolutely himself, in his house, in his shop, in his designs. He does not care about anyone else."

- AFP