It's a mixed bag of responses that one got from all the designers and participants of BFW. While some new designers, who bagged a few local orders were content as they did not expect more, other were critical in their assessment.

 

Bhumika and Hiral, Zubin Vakil, Neelam Ashley were all very vocal with the media on the dismal service, response and almost nil buyer presence at BFW. Yash Vardhan from Delhi, who was put up at the Ottera had to change his hotel midway as the customer service was poor. He was not particularly happy with the models as well or with the fact that there were no rehearsals before the show.

Jai and Parvesh were livid before the start of the show and were almost about to pull out after seeing the way the models were draped and sent out on the ramp. As Jai says, "We were given different sizes for the models and not only that, the choreographer of our show who discussed the looks and was given references for the whole show backed out at the last minute.
 
Forget rehearsals, they did not even have a fittings session." Parvesh adds in, "We tried to salvage the situation by trying to do the draping ourselves in the last minute but obviously with the heavy pieces that we have in the collection it was impossible to re-do the draping which was done by ill trained back stage assistants in a few seconds on models, who performed badly on the ramp.

 
"Even though a lot of young designers were debutants at this fashion week they all know what it takes to put a good show together the first of it being models", said Tejas Gandhi from Kolkata, who was hassled with the set of confused models that he was assigned for his show.
 "Along with designing I train models in Kolkata for shows and I was pretty disappointed at what I got at this 'Fashion Week', he added"
He also had a lot to say about the basic refreshment arrangements, "No one in the hotel had a clue. I thought this was supposed to be a five star hotel. Lunch/Dinner were always an embarrassing argument for us every time."

When we spoke to S. Mahajan on both buyers and models he commented, "It's been good and I think we have put up a great show." But when for names of a few buyers, who were present there he said, "I do not know this is the first week and I am sure it will pick up but I do not have any names or figures on me right now."
On the mixed bag of clothes that were showcased he said, "We had not given any particular brief to the designers. As this is the first edition we told them to get their best collection. We are trying to target the IT crowd the upper middle class with this fashion week by offering them affordable fashion."
 
(Wonder if they have heard about the recession, layoffs in the IT sector and the two hour drive from the city for 'local' middle class crowd?). A well known designer who had been invited to show at the BFW and had been given 'the royal treatment' said, "I do not consider Bangalore a fashion market and I do not think anyone here has the fashion sense to wear my clothes. I came because I was invited. That's it.”