Three winning designers will showcase their collections at Lakmé Fashion Week Winter/Festive 2019
Smartwater, the leading premium water brand by Coca-Cola and Lakmé Fashion Week, India’s most premier fashion event announced winners for the second edition of ‘The Platform’, a program to identify and mentor upcoming designers. Bloni by Akshat Bansal, SWGT by Shweta Gupta and Salita Nanda emerged as winners after the competitive rounds. The winners will get an opportunity to showcase their creative designs at the Lakmé Fashion Week Winter Festive 2019.
‘The Platform’ by SmartWater is targeted towards inspiring young and innovative designers of India to think out of the box and showcase their creativity at Lakmé Fashion Week. ‘The Platform’ aims to unearth talent and is inspired by the origin story of SmartWater, developed on the tenets of innovation, risk-taking and forward thinking. The theme for the season, #MadeDifferently, invited participating designers to demonstrate cutting edge technology, innovation in fabrics/materials or surface application.
An eminent jury comprising Anoop Manohar, Director – Emerging Categories, Coca-Cola India, Jaspreet Chandok – Vice President and Head of Fashion, IMG Reliance, Nonita Kalra – Editor of Harper’s Bazaar, Amit Aggarwal – Designer and Azmina Rahimtoola – co-owner at Atosa handpicked the winners at a jury meeting held on 5th July 2019 at Olive Bar and Kitchen, Khar.
On the announcement of the winners, Anoop Manohar, Director- Emerging Categories, Coca-Cola India said, “The Platform’ was introduced by smart water last year with one simple idea of recognizing the creativity and skill of the enormously talented designers across India. We are extremely proud to have successfully enabled some of the meritorious new generation designers to set high benchmarks across the fashion fraternity through ‘The Platform’. We feel honored to be surrounded by such talent, who portrayed the theme ‘Made Differently’ magnificently in their designs with a touch of innovation. Looking at the entries that reflected the increased enthusiasm for ‘The Platform’ among young designers, we feel all the more encouraged to come up with creative themes, more challenging and more exciting for the next edition”, he added.
Jaspreet Chandok, Vice President and Head of Fashion – IMG Reliance, said, “After the successful launch of ‘The Platform’ in Lakmé Fashion Week Winter Festive 2018, we are happy to associate with SmartWater once again to reinforce our commitment to creating multiple opportunities for identifying and nurturing fresh talent. Happy to add that we have received more than double the number of entries as compared to the first season which further exemplifies how the property is growing a step upwards every season”.