Delhi: No trace of colour on the murder scene
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The Nitin Bal Chauhan show climax involved collecting evidence at a murder scene. pics/Subhash Barolia and Vasu Barolia | Delhi's unfamiliar bylanes, a jerky drive in a cab controlled by the frail hands of an ageing sardar driver, the unrelenting heat, a new venue, and a delayed first show wasn't a great start to Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week, a five-day event that kickstarted in the capital yesterday. But when you battle the odds for a cause, you hope the opening show will give you reason to smile. It didn't. Because Nitin Bal Chauhan is sad. And he emptied his well of woes on to an already edgy urban audience that has enough reason to frown, without a fashion show adding to their troubles. In what could possibly be the longest AV presentation at any fashion week, and an unedited clothing line-up, the show titled, Conditions Apply Part II was a mayhem of modern-day madness.
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But headgears were jhakaas like always | The signature pleats were reinvented to the current obsession for scallops and were lavishly thrown over grey/black/white and a sporadic fluorescent palette. Stray digital prints were the only relief. Silhouettes stayed close to the body, (sheath dresses and skirts, deftly tailored trousers, blouses and jackets), detailed with military-inspired styling, perhaps to signify a restriction-driven lifestyle. The inclusion of the dhoti-drape dress worn by model Sapna Kumar should have broken the slumber, but it didn't because Nitin refused to budge from dreary greys. Pieces reminiscent of his earlier collections and theme-oriented headgears erasing personal identity, and a climax that included a murder scene, made it nothing more than an amateur production. Nitin Bal Chauhan
At: 1.30 pm
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