Fashion education: The state of affairs need to change

21 Sep '16

3 min read

Darlie Koshy, whose contributions to fashion and design education over the last three decades are well acknowledged, throws light on the state of fashion education in India

The fashion education system in India has been focusing on curriculum delivery rather than creating 'leadership', according to a leading fashion education expert.

Darlie Koshy, director-general of the Institute of Apparel Management (IAM) and the Apparel Training & Design Centre (ATDC), told Fibre2Fashion recently, “The state of affairs need to be changed to one of increased active interface with the Indian and international industries and fashion education system for deriving maximum synergy.” Koshy's remarks were published in the August issue of the magazine which looked at the state of fashion education in the country.

Koshy, whose pioneering contributions to fashion and design education over the last three decades have been well acknowledged by stakeholders, felt that there is no need for more fashion institutes in the country any more “as I think there are already 400+ universities and departments and 17 NIFTs and sufficient seats are available for the students to pursue fashion design education. The focus should be to retain the spirit of the initial years of the work of the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) with NIFT, and the NIFT initiative with IFFTI work (NIFT initiated IFFTI in 1997-98) for networking with fashion institutions, to restore leadership.”

In fact, it was Koshy himself who had established the fashion management department at the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) New Delhi, which he headed as senior professor and chairperson from 1987 to 2000. He contended that institutes now need to redefine their roles and goals in the new Digital Fashion Age with a large part of trade shifting to e-commerce and m-commerce as Alibaba and Amazon have proved to the world.

Koshy elaborated, “The new fashion idiom is a 'distributed model'. At the local level, fashion has become no different from pizzas as it has to be delivered within a day, often thus making 'fast fashion' to capture the imagination of the youth. Our designers have to be brought up in a new fashion environment where speed, skills and imagination without boundaries matter. Couture has its place but prêt, d'fusion and fast fashion require a different level of training and a new mindset where change is accepted as the 'new normal'.”

Read the full interview in the August issue of Fibre2Fashion, or online here

Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India

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