A scene from the ramp at Sabyasachi Mukherjee’s show at Lakme Fashion Week. Picture by Pabitra Das

After rocking the Mumbai ramp last week with his Lakme Fashion Week (LFW) line titled The Snail, Sabyasachi Mukherjee is all set to showcase in New York. Come September, and the Calcutta designer will unveil his spring-summer 2007 line with a solo show at the Olympus Fashion Week (OFW) in New York.

Sabyasachi has been selected to participate in the OFW ? popularly referred to as New York Fashion Week ? through a special vote arranged by organisers of the just-concluded LFW.

Representatives of IMG, New York, international buyers and foreign journalists present at the event and the LFW advisory board chose ‘Sabya’ unanimously to participate in the OFW among all designers who showcased in Mumbai last week.

ong with Sabyasachi, nine other designers have been chosen to showcase at fashion weeks all over the world. While the city star will goes to New York, Manish Malhotra, Priyadarshini Rao and Surily Goel will head for the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week at Smashbox Studios in Los Angeles in October.

Anshu Arora Sen, Rocky S and Savio Jon have been selected to show at the Singapore Fashion Festival in March 2007. Nandita Mahtani and Narendra Kumar (Sydney later this month), Sonam Dubal (Melbourne in October) are the chosen trio that will display at the Mercedes-Benz Australian Fashion Weeks.

“The decisions were taken at a closed-door meeting on Tuesday afternoon, where the international buyers, media and representatives of IMG expressed their views on which designer’s work will suit the sensibilities of which market. And it was a unanimous decision to send Sabyasachi to New York since everyone felt that he will cater to the market there quite well,” said Anil Chopra, vice-president of Lakme Lever.

IMG, the event producers of OFW, will waive Sabyasachi’s participation fee in the event and will also provide for the hair and make-up costs of models showcasing his collection.

Sabyasachi hasn’t stopped smiling since the New York news broke. “I got the news quite late on Tuesday. I was unwell and in bed, a friend called me from Mumbai to give me the news. It’s a great opportunity because New York is the strongest fashion week venue; the whole of US and Europe shows there,” the designer told GoodLife.

Sabyasachi plans to do “a brand new spring-summer 2007 collection” for the show, inspired by the paintings of Egon Schiele. “I might also draw inspiration from the characters of Huckleberry Finn, Oliver Twist and Pirates of the Caribbean,” he revealed. The palette would be muted, probably even all-white.