Interview with Mr Rajeev Lakhara

Footwear Design & Development Institute popularly known as ‘FDDI’ is rated among the premier fashion institutions in the world. It is widely recognized as a centre of excellence. The institute conducts job oriented professional programmes through:

FDDI has sprawling modern structure with excellent facilities, highly qualified and trained staff, visiting faculty including top professionals from industry and every other resource required for making the institute number one in the world. FDDI also provides its students and faculty with Wi-Fi Internet connectivity. The entire campus is wireless and offering all-round Wi-Fi Internet access to students and faculty.

The institute's rigorous training programmes are focused on creativity, innovation, leadership, teamwork and the global business climate is reflected in its record of 100 percent placement for all its graduates. FDDI has always enjoyed special preference from Indian as well as foreign employers on account of its excellent performance sustained over a long period of time and its strong brand image.

FDDI alumni include VP’s and CEO’s of some of the renowned companies. FDDI students have been able to get global placement in countries like USA, UK, Germany, Hong Kong, Egypt, China, Singapore, UK, Middle East, Sri Lanka, Kenya etc.

Time has experienced innumerable changes in the economic landscape of the country. From protection, India has gradually moved towards open markets. It aims to become a vibrant global economic factor.

The post liberalization era has opened up a plethora of opportunities for the Indian leather industry. With global players looking for new sourcing options (in addition to China), India stands to gain a bigger share of the global market. Leading brands from the US and Europe are planning to source leather and leather products from India.

Prospects for fashion design are pretty good, thanks to the huge and still growing demand for 'designer wear' and the equally large volume of exports.

However as compared to the UK , which boasts of over 150,000 designers or China and Taiwan, which have a population of over 1lakh designers each, India has only around 1,500 – 2000 skilled designers.

There are only a dozen-odd institutes that produce over 500 designers per annum, whereas the annual demand is for 8,000-10,000 designers. This calls for adopting a multi-tiered approach right from the school to professional level to bridge this gap.

Now the fashion industry has become so specialized that it encompasses a vast field of studies in design, concept management, design production management, quality control, planning, fashion accessory design, fashion merchandising, marketing and so on.