Nachiket Barve Owner, Nachiket Barve Design

After graduation Nachiket joined NID for a PG in Apparel and Accessory Design.  Following a stint at ENSAD Paris on a scholarship by the French government, he launched his eponymous label at the Lakme Fashion Week in 2007. He is the CEO and Creative Director at the company. He has shown six seasons at the fashion week and his latest collection for SS/10 won rave reviews from the press as well as retailers.  

Nachiket Barve Design deals with design and manufacturing of textiles and garments. The fusion label stands for the philosophy of luxury expressed in a contemporary, fresh and innovative way. He creates his own textiles using the finest materials to bring about an amalgamation of intricate techniques and clean streamlined silhouettes. The beginning of every collection starts from the process of creating fabric itself using material, techniques and skills available locally. The look of the range is international, while the elements that go into making it are Indian.

Namrata Shah, Owner, Two Up Two Down

Namrata is a textile designer from the Srishti School of Design in Bangalore. Her work experience includes working on projects with international firms emphasising on hand crafted textiles. She has been a design consultant to a leading firm in Dhaka for the past 5 years, visiting faculty on woven design at Srishti, worked on individual textile projects with NGOs, and senior manager design with Reliance Retail.

Her passion for hand woven textile has encouraged her to launch Two Up Two Down where each product is handcrafted and is distinct and unique for their woven embellishments. She works with weavers in remote parts of Karnataka motivating them to revive their craft. She has trained them to create patterns that are contemporary in nature using traditional practices, to be able to bridge the gap between design and craft for a niche market. Recently her creations have formed part of a collection for a reputed fashion designer participating in the Wills/Lakme India Fashion Week. Currently her products retail through design stores in Bangalore and Mumbai as well as exported to UK.

Digvijay Singh, Owner, Studio Digvijay Singh

Digvijay is an artist who creates often forgetting the rules and simply following his natural instincts. His inspiration lies not only in the cultural influences and wisdom but also the everyday seemingly mundane chores. Driven by a desire to innovate, he experiments with cuts and fits and strives to contemporise the conventional by reviving the forgotten charm and simplicity of traditional Indian clothing to match modern sensibilities.

Initially he explored Khadi and presented three collections in the Fashion Weeks as he felt that the fabric hasn’t been given its due on the ramp. There are not many fabrics that offer the kind of textures, comfort and exclusivity that Khadi offers. Later he moved on to 100% organic fabric. This organic fabric range is marketed under the brand name Digvijay Singh for Bhusattva. These fabrics don’t tax the land with chemicals and use herbal dyes. He strongly believes that ‘going green is no a luxury but the very essence of survival. Working with organic fabric is even more challenging due to its limitations of texture and colour. He is dedicated to promote organic fabric and transforming unpretentious materials into high fashion and desirable clothing.

Neha Agarwal, Owner, M/s Neha Agarwal

Neha graduated from NIFT Kolkata in 2003 winning the award for the Most Creative Designer and later launched her signature label in 2005. She debuted at the Lakme Fashion Week AW/09 as an emerging designer.

Her label stands for ethnic yet edgy separates with a particular focus on prints and layering. Her clothes are inspired, not by forecasts but people – their moods, quirks and unique traits. Currently she retails from cities across India and the Middle East and has been featured in stylesight as one of the best collections of Lakme SS/10.

Babita Jaishankar, Owner, Wardrobe Solutions

Babita has been interested in designing since she was a child. By the age of 14 years she had begun designing and sewing her own outfits. Her friends and family began noticing her abilities and requesting for her help to select their clothes and accessories. Sometimes, she would help them draft out new patterns. Thus began her journey into the world of dresses and she launched WSol, a fashion and image consultancy. A stint in the US as a skin and beauty consultant helped her explore and expand her interests in makeup and its effectiveness in enhancing one’s appearance.

At WSol she offers customized services such as colour profiling, style profiling, wardrobe restyling, personal shopping and hair and makeup makeovers. There is a dearth of both knowledge and service providers for the modern day Indian woman who has to dress up for various occasions. This led her to launch her designs under the brand name of Baja. Most of her designs are made to fit women even when their sizes change!

Gaurav Gupta, Owner, Akaaro

Trained at Chelsea College of Art and Design London in Woven Textiles and National Institute of Fashion Technology Delhi in Fashion and Graphics, Gaurav makes clothes and accessories which are all hand woven and sustainable. He debuted at the prestigious ORIGIN: The London Craft fair in 2007 under his studio AKAARO and has been regular ever since. His approach towards his work and commitment to revive appreciation for contemporary Indian textiles has earned him both critical acclaim and a list of high profile customers with in U.K with likes of Emma Thompson, Dato Jimmy Choo and Gwyn Miles.

Early this year Gupta was selected for the prestigious “Shared Talent India” Project for promoting Indian sustainable textiles an initiative by CSF London which was exhibited at London Fashion Week. A fair amount of his design practise address issues with in the context of design education in India; as a part of which he regularly conducts workshops, do talks and teach at various design institutes. With in his capacity as a graduate ambassador for University of the Arts in India and a fellow of Royal Society of the Arts he has been successful in establishing a platform for young designers like himself to connect to the right audience and develop networks which are inclusive.    

Rahul Mishra, Co-Founder, The Apple Tree

Rahul graduated from NID winning the Best Student Designer of the year award in 2005 and followed it up in 2006 by winning the Pride of NID. After creating waves on the Indian Emerging Designers scene, he went on to be the first Non – European Designer to win the prestigious Scholarship at the Istituto Marangoni for a Masters in Fashion Designing.

In 2008, he was voted as the Pepsi MTV ‘Youth Icon’ of the year. He has recently won the ‘International Designer of the Year award’ in the most Commercial Design category at the IAF (International Apparel Federation) annual convention held in Netherlands. He believes in integrating the rich heritage of Indian craft with the constantly varying pulse of global fashion, and his forte is to blend the rustic-ness of Indian Arts and Crafts, and the earthiness of Indian Handloom Textiles, with the delicateness of Today’s Urban Fashion. His recent collection showcased at WIFW was again rated as one of the best collections of the season. Even French fashion doyen Didier Grumbach described this collection as “the commercial success” of the event.

Anand Kabra, Owner, Anand Kabra

Anand is Hyderabad based and graduated from the London College of Fashion. The ideology that inspires him is to create distinctive style statements which weave in both Indian couture and international fashion. This amalgamation in his designs emote a language that is global with a deep Indian sensibility.

The aesthete of the label Anand Kabra is to take the multilayered influences and merge boundaries rather than change them. Unpredictably juxtaposed, his collections take on an edge because they are mood rather than trend based. The hallmark of taking one single thread – an emotion, a motif – as the unifying thematic for each collection, is the leitmotif of his work. The design sensibility reflects his fervour for clean lines, immaculate cuts and finishes. The label’s distinctive sensibility has won pride of place in the book, ‘Young Asian Fashion Designers’ published by DAAB, Germany and the tile of ‘Best Emerging Designer’ by Marie Claire in 2008.

Nonita Kalra, Editor-In-Chief, ELLE India

Nonita has been in the media business since 1990 -- working in both print and television. She has been with the magazine for nearly a decade now. She also writes a fortnightly column for a leading newspaper in the country.

Narendra Kumar, Designer, Narendra Kumar

Narendra Kumar was part of the first ever graduating class from National Institute of Fashion Technology (1990) while it was still being run in conjunction with FIT, New York and Trent Polytechnic, UK. The NK line for both men and women is based on modern cuts and silhouettes but integrates the luxurious aspects of specially woven Indian fabrics and hand crafted detailing to maintain a couture feel to the line. The company works with some of India's leading textile manufacturers in creating fashion brands and imaging the brands for relevance to the Indian market.

Darrell Vydelingum, Director, Blow PR

Darrell began promoting Clubs in the early nineties in London and later went off to study art. He has been an artist for over twelve years with shows in New York, London and Paris; working with Talvin Singh, Outcaste Records and Channel Four.

Now at Blow for the past four years he works with young and established designers. Blow brought Manish Arora to London, making him one of the biggest designers, resulting in Manish being the first Indian designer to show at Paris Fashion Week. Blow also discovered Basso and Brooke, the first winners of the renowned Fashion Fringe award. They have presented several winners since.

Blow has a close relationship with London Fashion Week. They produce the official Off-Schedule Guide. The Guide is handed to everyone who attends London Fashion Week and also acts as a directory throughout the season. Off-Schedule has started the career of many young designers, who have used Off-Schedule as a platform to show their first collections, including Alexander McQueen. In February 2010, they will celebrate 10 years of the Off-Schedule Guide.

They endeavour to keep promoting and help designers and events; both UK based and International. Recently they worked with WILLS Indian Fashion Week, Japanese Fashion and Harrods. Blow worked with the British Council two seasons ago to set up the launch of the UK and International Young Entrepreneur Award at British Fashion Council official tent, where both winners were announced. Michael Oliveira-Salac was one of the main judges.

Priya Kishore; Creative Director; Bombay Electric

Priya is the creative director of Bombay Electric, a concept store in Mumbai that was conceived as an Indian platform for fashion and design. She is also the winner of Young Fashion Entrepreneur Award 2009. Since launching a new concept in a nascent market, she has grown Bombay Electric from ‘the first concept store to hit the city’ (JC report, 2007) to ‘the incarnation of the new Indian cool’ (IHT2007), and finally a potential “template for the next millennium of Indian style” (Suzy Menkes, IHT 2008). Priya works with established Indian designers but also interacts closely with emerging designers, and gives support and advice to young talent, to give them a platform and opportunity to develop their design. She sees the future of fashion as rooted in sustainable design, and works with several NGOs such as Women Weave, Aranya and Alba to develop traditional crafts and techniques in a modern context and ensure that it is the artisans who profit from their craft.

British Council in association with ELLE announced the International Young Fashion Entrepreneur (IYFE) award 2010 for the third time, to champion and celebrate the importance of creative entrepreneurs working in the field of fashion. The participating countries include Libya, Syria, Bangladesh, Lithuania, Philippines, Russia, Sri Lanka, Turkey and India.

The award is open to entrepreneurs between 25 and 35 years working in any of the following fashion sectors  

			Fashion, textile, accessories or perfume design and production
			Fashion promotion: shows, exhibitions, festivals, events
			Fashion retail: buying, merchandising
			Fashion product research, sourcing, supply chain management
			Fashion marketing, PR, branding, journalism
			Fashion publishing, communications, websites
			Consultants providing specialist services in any of the areas outlined

Eligibility

Definition of a fashion entrepreneur

Please note that our definition of a fashion entrepreneur is wide-ranging and includes:

			Somebody working in the fashion sector and is able to demonstrate business success in the classic terms of business growth (profit, market share, employees) and/or in terms of their reputation (quality and aesthetic) amongst their peers.
			Somebody who has developed a successful (in terms of impact and reach) social or not-for-profit enterprise in the sector
			Somebody who has shown leadership in the industry by championing its development in India
			Somebody who has developed initiatives (exhibitions, trade fairs, festivals etc) that develop and grow the Indian market.

Read more about the winner and judges of 2009 award.