(From top) Fashion designer Aparna Chandra with model Candice Pinto draped in one of her creations and models Tupur Chatterjee and Carol Gracious sport Malini Ramani?s (centre) outfits before the Seagram?s Blenders Pride Fashion Tour show at The Oberoi Grand on Friday. Pictures by Pabitra Das

Move over club wear, party wear and even lounge wear. It?s time to acquaint your wardrobe with a new genre of clothing ? resort wear ? if you take the cue from a line of designer ensembles unveiled in the city on Friday.

The Seagram?s Blenders Pride Fashion Tour, organised in association with The Oberoi Grand, rolled out its Calcutta edition on Friday night, after having dazzled the Mumbai audience earlier this month. While designers Malini Ramani and Aparna Chandra showcased their spring summer 2005 collections first, two couture kings ? Tarun Tahiliani and Wendell Rodricks ? are set to storm the ramp on Saturday night.

Showcasing in Calcutta for the first time ever, Malini presented her colourful best with a line of ?resort wear? called Tropical ? Disco of Love. ?The collection is all about island life, inspired by the tropics. The clothes will automatically get anyone into a holiday mood,? crowed the designer before the show, revealing that it?s resort wear she wants to specialise in.

?I have always been very attracted to island life ?beaches, water and balmy weather. And though I do a wide variety of clothing, I want to concentrate on resort wear when it comes to my own boutiques,? said the Delhi-based designer.

Malini is all set to open her second boutique in Bali in July, which will be done up on the same lines as her Goa store. ?My spring-summer line is perfectly in sync with the destination of my next store, though the line was done much earlier when the Bali thing hadn?t even come up,? she added.

While work on the Bali store is yet to begin, Malini is already eyeing other destinations like Sardania, Miami and the Bahamas to open a ?chain of island fashion stores throughout the world?.

Right now, it?s the nationwide fashion tour that?s keeping her busy, with shows lined up in Bangalore, Delhi and Hyderabad. Next on her priority list is the India Fashion Week, where she plans to unveil an autumn-winter line with lots of bold prints and knits.

Aparna, whose creations shared the ramp with Malini, doesn?t plan to design anything ?season specific? for the fashion week. ?I am not much of a trends person. I try to stay away from fashion forecasts. Though commercially it makes more sense, since buyers usually go by forecasts, I feel it binds my creativity,? said the designer from Delhi.

And it?s her creative independence that has been given a free run in the 60s-inspired line of fluorescent clothing she showcased on Friday.

?It?s a fun collection where I haven?t given much thought to the commercial aspect. Since it?s for the show, I have taken all liberties to design very bold and funky clothes. I don?t see too many people wanting to buy these outfits, however, and so the collection going to the stores will be toned down a bit,? admitted Aparna.

It?s the clash between her creativity and commercialism that she feels hasn?t offered her a lucrative market in Calcutta. ?I have showcased in Calcutta twice before, at the Stylefile shows, and I also retail from Ogaan. I think Calcutta is still fairly conservative and Indian clothes sell here. So my clothes have never found too many buyers,? said Aparna, who has started venturing into Indian clothes of late.

The fashion tour over with, Aparna plans to concentrate on her India Fashion Week collection, which she would also showcase at her debut in the Miami Fashion Week in May.

?Miami is the first international fashion week I am participating in. I will need some more time to be ready for London and Milan,? she signed off.