Fashion embraces reality chic
Fashion designers and retail brands are looking beyond models and roping in musicians, bloggers, gym instructors to showcase their collections
The fashion sense of a common man is full of oddities and surprises and comes with a raw appeal. — NITIN BAL CHAUHAN, DESIGNER
An increasing number of fashion retail brands and designers are looking beyond Bollywood celebrities or professional models for their promotional campaigns and roping in musicians, bloggers, clients, gym instructors, or watchmen and common folk from various fields to showcase their collections.
The charm of a common man’s dressing sense and their natural walk is what draws many designers to have them walk the runway, feel fashion experts.
Delhi- based fashion designer Nitin Bal Chauhan has been teaming up frequently with rockstars, DJs, bloggers and stylists to showcase his bright and funky clothing label, Bhootsavaar. “Fashion is not just about ramp- walking but should become more real and relatable to the common man. The fashion sense of a common man is full of oddities and surprises and comes with a raw appeal. Every individual has a certain style quotient and is comfortable in his/ her skin. Musicians and dancers are so experimental with their looks — many of them like their hair messy or unevenly cut or opt for gelled mohawks — which is a brownie point for my collection, which is aimed at the common man,” says Chauhan, who wants to remove the plasticity from the fashion world.
Being relatively young in the market, retail- clothing brand Bhane. aims to focus on building awareness about their collection in a very organic, connected way.
Says Kassia Karr, brand and culture manager of Bhane . “Shooting our collections with real people was a clear extension of that. Our models do have a very unintimidating and approachable look because none of them are models by profession. While shooting, most of them are shy in front of the camera and it is easy to relate to them because most of us are also naturally camera- conscious. We want to show the flexibility of our clothing by people with different styles, of different heights and weights etc. adorning them.” Delhi- based designer Rajesh Pratap Singh’s Spring/Summer 2014 campaign was a refreshing break from the gloss of the fashionable world and featured his factory watchman and a gym instructor. Singh believes in the disarming appeal of a common man and had in the past chosen as his model ace photographer Late Prabuddha Dasgupta model, and in recent times mem- bers of popular rock bands like Parikrama and Advaita, artists like Subodh Gupta, architects and other common folk.
Designer Sanjay Garg of Raw Mango too ropes in common faces with not- so- toned figures and those who defy the conventional norms of ‘ picture perfect’ beauties.
“While I give full merit to designers for roping in celebrities and models to represent a brand or be a label’s face, the fact that designers are now also looking towards commoners is an indication of the fact that it’s working and that’s what the clientele clearly wants. For some of our shows, we decided to invite our clients and wear our collection. It was a win- win situation for them as well as for us as they got an opportunity to flaunt what they purchased and we earned their satisfaction and publicity,” concludes designer Sonia Sen of label Charas.