Is fall fashion relevant in India?

Layers, intelligent use of fabrics, clever design and tighter drops than collections are the way forward to fall, say a bunch of fashion designers and entrepreneurs

Our feelings about “fall” are often influenced by the famous “Christian girl meme” doing the rounds on social media—we’re talking sepia-toned settings, autumn leaves, deep-hued overcoats and boots. Almost always, this picture is straight out of the cooler climes where fall fashion goes hand-in-hand with a pumpkin-spiced latte complemented by trusty, classic pieces or are directly from the runway. For example, Chanel’s Fall 2022 ready-to-wear collection saw Virginie Viard fashion the house staple—tweed—for the countryside, while Versace made a strong case for the power suit. But the looming question here is: Do these global trends translate  in India?

Rising demand

For Dhruv Kapoor, who became the first Indian designer to stage a menswear show at the Milan Fashion Week in June, the demand for outerwear in India has been a pleasant surprise. “Even Bombay is investing in padded bombers and heavy-duty winter coats,” he says. A large part of his clientele here demand edgy outerwear during the winter months. But their “voluminous denim jackets and OTT trenches are sold out throughout the year, including in peak summer months.”

Meanwhile, Gitanjali Saxena, business head, Tata CLiQ Luxury, has pegged the overall demand for the fall-winter segment on their website as “almost 60 per cent of the customer’s yearly demand”. The reasons for this? “Weather, festive occasions and travel are the three main demand-drivers for fall fashion in India. The change in weather and an onset of festivities usually boost demand throughout the early part of the season, especially in categories like sweatshirts, jackets, coats, boots and stud-embellished products like sandals and handbags,” adds Saxena.  

Designer Kanika Goyal points out how people in the subcontinent are not sartorially guided by just the two predominant seasons. “Even with just two major seasons in India, I don’t think people have ever dressed only in ‘summer’ or ‘winter’ clothing.” 

Clearly, people seem to agree as Saxena helped add more context in terms of numbers testifying to the same. She says that they are even “seeing more than a 100 per cent increase in the revenue-share of overall customer demand on the platform in some categories”. And that’s not all. “This is accompanied by an increase in average order value of 10–20 per cent, as a result of the increasing share of the outerwear category,” says Saxena. 

“For us to follow spring/summer and autumn/winter trends in a transeasonal country is tricky—while north India could be looking for outerwear, others travelling to beach towns could be looking for resort pieces,” adds Nimish Shah, creative director of Bhaane. Known for their drops that are similar to how international street wear labels launch their collections, fall remains important for the label. “Even if ‘fall’ doesn’t make sense for us, it is still our largest drop from the merchandising point.”

Indian fabrics and silhouettes 

“India has always been about beautiful shawls, handmade sweaters and drapes. But I think people also realise that the minute they discover overcoats, our lives do get a little easier,” says Shah. While newer Indian brands, armed with R&D, are approaching things differently, it might still be a bit of a learning curve for many to go beyond the usual shawls and winter drapes. “There will be the silks and cotton for Indians to rely on for festive wear during these months but it might be more utilitarian to rely on Western silhouettes,” adds Shah.

According to fashion entrepreneur Pernia Qureshi, fall fashion in India can still remain quite restricted to the wedding season. “Diwali onwards, it is fall/festive/wedding season in India and I think this is when people invest in formal wear and ethnic wear for parties and weddings. The revenue from this season fuels designers’ businesses all year round because demand slows down in summer,” she explains.

But contemporary fashion labels in India are also stepping up their game as the younger breed of designers have been working with more manageable fabrics like denim, wool felt, flannel, tweed and French terry that are more suited to the Western silhouettes of their designs. “In addition, faux fur and faux leather work well during the peak winter season in north India specifically,” says Goyal. “Our design process each season starts with the outerwear prototypes, and these pave the way for the rest of the collection,” adds Kapoor. 

Tackling overproduction with versatility

So while we collectively talk about mindful consumption and a seasonless approach towards fashion, how can we do so while dressing and producing for the different seasons? “The only visible switch from fall to spring would be styling the product. When approaching the spring/summer collections, our delivery timeline is December. The product shelf-life ranges mostly from January until June, which gives us three months to sell heavier fall pieces,” explains Kapoor. 

Meanwhile, Qureshi believes that it makes sense for contemporary labels to have one or two seasons instead of following the whole cycle of the Western calendar. “Alternatively, you could do one or two seasonless collections in a year for contemporary clothing, especially for people who live in Mumbai,” says Qureshi, who, of her own admission, “has stopped buying contemporary wear during winter” owing to her previous collections of coats and jackets from her time spent in cities like New York where she needed them. “Now I live in Mumbai so I don’t really need that and I don’t really buy unless, once in a while, I need something,” she adds.

Having tighter drops and creating versatile pieces are key, especially in India, where we might be residing in a city like Mumbai with hardly any winter, but might be travelling to New Delhi for a wedding or an event for which, heavier layers come in handy. Goyal attests to versatility of wear being important in making mindful consumption a habit. “Our statement pieces include T-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies and denim pants and jackets that during the warmer months, can be used as is, while during colder months, can be clubbed together and layered,” says Goyal.  

And Shah makes a case for the “drop” culture–a limited release of merchandise as opposed to full-fledged collections, as championed by Bhaane–saying: “The good thing about drops is that they can only be announced when a brand wants to tell a story. There could be two drops and then nothing for eight months. When you are doing drops, you are already writing off the risk of unsold items as it means that you are not producing too many items to begin with,” adds Shah.

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