Anita Dongre hunts for talent online

Designer Anita Dongre, founder of labels like AND, Grassroots and Global Desi, is on the lookout for

an accessory designer, and is throwing open the challenge to anybody who’s interested. Since she is a vegetarian, she is looking for someone who would not use leather to create her line of bags and accessories. Dongre says she is looking for someone talented, preferably from Italy, because she feels Italians are really the best in the world when it comes to understanding accessory design.

To fill the position, Dongre has turned to online talent sourcing platform, Talenthouse India, for what they call ‘fashion crowdsourcing’. The website hosts various competitions in genres like fashion, graphic design, script-writing and even modelling, which are open to a global community of creative artistes, who compete for the ultimate prize.

According to Arun Mehra, CEO of Talenthouse, designers can get their friends to vote for their artwork, which will better their chances of winning this opportunity. “Once you register with the website and submit your design, your Facebook page will automatically be integrated onto the platform. So your friends will be able to see the competition and vote for you. Anita will be the one to select the winner from the top 20, based on the number of votes the designs have received,” he says. If you are wondering what the catch is, Mehra adds that the applicants should be comfortable with putting their creations on a pubic platform, where there are limited ways of protecting the copyright.