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| Ravina and Srijana Baruah showcase their collection at Bangalore Fashion Week. File picture |
Jorhat, Aug. 3: Twins Ravina and Srijana Baruah, designers from Jorhat, first rode Marilyn Monroe to the Vogue honours list and then rubbed shoulders with the likes of Meera and Muzaffar Ali with their innovative creations in eri and muga silk at the seventh Bangalore Fashion Week for the fall/winter collection from July 26 to 29.
Ravina, the twin who was listed in the Vogue honours list, told The Telegraph over phone from Bangalore that this was just the first step.
“Being selected to display our creations at the Bangalore Fashion Week where India’s top designers like Ritu Beri and Meera and Muzaffar Ali also showcase their talent, is an honour in itself.
To qualify is difficult, as the stress is on innovation, quality and novelty. Being one of the winners of Vogue’s all-India fashion designing contest 2011 obviously made a difference,” Ravina said.
Ravina and Srijana’s theme for the grand finale was Bonfire, in which they upheld the warm tones of the region in ivory, beige and gold vis-a-vis a weave of eri, muga and cotton with traditional motifs of the Northeast in maroon, coral, royal blue, yellow and black.
“Eri is a wonderful organic material, which can be pleated as in western skirts and be light and flowing when mixed with cotton or becomes heavy when mixed with muga for pants or a structured dress. We experimented with the fabric in its purity and blended it with others and came up with a pencil dress, drum suit, tulip dress and more. The idea was to highlight the fabric more and keep the motifs muted, which gave them a vintage fifties look,” Srijana said.
The duo said their dresses had been very well received by fashionistas and general viewers, with a few houses selling branded wear promising to contact them for orders.
“The response to our designs was very good and we hope to go on from here,” Srijana said, adding that the models, most of them Russian, wanted to take back a dress with them.
Ravina was one among the 30 winners in the Vogue fashion design contest in India for upcoming talents.
Over 1,000 contestants from 100 top fashion colleges of the country in 2011 participated in the contest.
The honours list was published in the magazine’s India edition.
Ravina said they were asked to create a line inspired by the fashion of the seventies.
“I did a lot of research on the works of pop artist Andy Warhol and his series of images on Marilyn Monroe and other pop singers and came up with a series of original creations,” she said.
The win might give her the opportunity to show her designs at Vogue Fashion’s Night Out, an event hosted by Vogue publications, in which fresh new talent can showcase their designs, along with topnotch ones.
“Last year the winners were given this opportunity and I hope we are given the same platform this time,” she said.
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