CFW on controversy over ‘Panther’ collection

A different buzz off the ramp emerged on social media over the ‘Panther’ collection presented at CFW’s Emerging Designer showcase on Day 1 with furious fashion followers pointing out that the designer had ‘borrowed’ from Christian Dior’s iconic Toile de Jouy motif with no proper accreditation nor acknowledgement given to Dior while others questioned how this had slipped past the CFW design mentors.

Responding to The Sunday Times on the controversy, the CFW management team said that CFW as a development based organisation has worked closely in developing designers since its inception from Darshi Keerthisena in 2007, Sonali Dharmawardena in 2010, and more recently Dimuthu Sahabandu, Charini and others from the design schools.

“CFW grooms, mentors and inculcates a culture of relevance in their design sensibility so that they create strong collections but we don’t design their collections. We trust designers to create. Fashion has come down the ages, thousand of years and in a modern sense we can still call 200 years relevant, but we don’t archive all here. We look at the strength of idea, collection planning, quality finishing and presentation. And make it clear to designers to not pick up anything from the web but create. And we trust designers to work with integrity, we don’t police them.”

The CFW team added that every year was a learning curve. “This situation will be a placeholder to keep in mind when mentoring designers in the future. We will not name and shame and hurt a young career who can surely learn from this and correct themselves. We will give them a chance.”

The designer declined to comment.