Minister Interacts with Top Fashion Designers
14 March 2022: Union Minister for Commerce & Industry, Textiles, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution, Piyush Goyal chaired a meeting with designers, which brainstormed ideas on making India the fashion capital of the world and empowering our country’s artisans and weavers, who are the true flag bearers of our culture and craft heritage. U. P. Singh, Secretary, Ministry of Textiles and Shantmanu, Director General of NIFT were also present.
The meeting was attended by 27 illustrious alumni of NIFT having significant experience in the handloom and handicraft sectors of India. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the collaboration of designer’s crafts people and how interventions of technology and marketing strategies can increase the scalability of the craft. Protection of craft and craft people, sustenance of craft, were some of the views put forth by the designers. Craft should be given the status of luxury as it is labour of love.
The minister appreciated the designers for their point of view as well their passion for Indian Crafts. He emphasized that art, craft, culture, tradition and heritage of a nation is to be respected. He assured the designers that all the points raised or discussed are well noted and will be taken into account in the way forward. The idea of wearing khadi/ handloom one day a week and the sense of designers having pride in the nation was appreciated. “It opens up a lot of possibilities and that the designers have a huge role to play”, he said.
He also stated that India should ultimately become the fashion capital of the world. India should mark its presence globally by having its products displayed alongside the prominent fashion houses of the world. He said, “Taking pride is important and without prejudice one needs to take the ideas forward for the sake of the progress of the nation. Collaboration is the key point and all together can make Indian Craft presence felt globally and all will benefit”.
The Minister urged the designers to work in synergy towards one goal of ensuring that each of the 75 lakh identified craft people earns Rs.1,000 more every month. He said next is identification and protection of India’s craft and heritage. The Minister also called upon the entire ecosystem of NIFT with over 30,000 alumni to get together to bring in a change in the craft ecosystem. Each alumnus should adopt a craft person and devote time to educate the non-privileged section of the society on various aspects of design, management and technology, he added.
The forum witnessed the amalgamation of some of the senior most designers whose contribution to Indian craft sector is remarkable. These are Sunita Shanker, Sabyasachi Mukherjee, Tanveen Ratti, Suket Dhir, Uma Prajapati, Parminder Pal Singh, Karishma Acharya, Anavila Misra, Nidhi Yasha, Nivedita Saboo, Manish Tripathi, Anjali Purohit, Anindita Sardar, Akshay Singh, Sarthak Sengupta, Samant Chauhan, Sidharth Sinha, Joy Mitra, Mannat Sethi, Harpreet Padam, Padma Raj Keshri, Rinki Gautam, Abhishek Gupta, Gaurav Jai Gupta, Vaibhav Aggarwal, and Priyankur Sengupta, Anindita Sardar and Akshay Deep Singh.
