Top fashion designers urge for revival of traditional textiles

A group of fashion designers met union textile minister Santosh Gangwar in Mumbai recently to extend their support to the revival of traditional Indian textiles and handicrafts. The group included BJP's spokesperson and fashion designer Shaina NC, Manish Malhotra, Ritu Kumar, Reena Dhaka, Anita Dongre and Sandeep Khosla.

To begin with, the designers will concentrate their efforts on Uttar Pradesh, mainly Varanasi to work with local artisans and develop designs with modern day sensibilities. Assistance would also be extended to the artisan community in organising fashion shows and participation in various exhibitions and events to showcase their art on various platforms. The group also assured their support for setting up design centres in different clusters to let the local artisans understand and deliver the product as per the designs in demand.

On the other hand, designers, who are already working with artisans from different clusters, would get a chance to implement government’s schemes, which in turn would help them streamline their own fashion label. The union textile ministry also plans to re-launch the Benarasi sari on online platform Flipkart after creating it as per the market demand and contemporary sari designs with guidance from these designer.