I intend to take a break till I feel upto this again.

Au revoir.

FIRST-TIME entrants Yogesh Chaudhary and Manas Barve from India have won the Montana World of WearableArt Supreme Award.

The winners’ garment, Loops, also won the American Express Open Section.

During last night’s awards show, international guest judge Mark D’Arcy said the World of WearableArt made Lady Gaga look like a librarian.

A total of 191 garments from around the world including 130 local entries and 61 international entries took to the stage this year with international designers winning thirteen of the thirty-five prizes on offer.

Peter Alwin from National Institute of Design in India is the winner of the Electrolux Design Lab 2010 competition for inventing The Snail, the Micro Induction Heating.

Electrolux, a global leader in home and professional appliances, selected The Snail as the Electrolux Design Lab 2010 winner. The announcement was made at the finals in London on September 23, 2010, at 100% Design London, the UK’s leading architecture and design event.

The Snail is a portable heating and cooking device based on magnetic induction processes. Such is the size and versatility of the Snail, it can be stuck directly on to a pot, a pan, a mug etc. to heat the contents.This reduces the amount of space required for conventional cooking whilst adding portability to the process. Powered by a high density sugar crystal battery, the Snail converts the energy from the sugar, heating up a coil to conduct the magnetic induction process to the utensil. Integrated sensors detect the food type being heated so as to automatically adjust the time and temperature. A simple touch sensitive display with interface helps to monitor the process.

Congratulations Peter!

Global Age-Friendly Design Awards 2010 (GADA 2010) invites students, design professionals, design firms and the general public to submit their ideas on products that can change and enhance the lifestyles of the elderly.

Previously known as International Design Awards in 2008, the competition drew interest from more than 200 participants from Australia, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. This year it hopes to increase the number of entries from local and international design communities and agencies.

Submissions must be the original design of participants and must not have been previously released commercially or submitted to other competitions. Designs from both group and individual work can be submitted for this competition.

Entry to this competition is free of charge.

Judging Criteria

• Innovativeness in design
• Creativeness in solutions
• Commercial value add and manufacturability
• Relevance to the elderly market
• Ease of use and relevant aesthetics
• System and environmentally sustainable and friendly

It was story time when NID alumnus Paromita Banerjee unveiled her collection for Winter/Festive 2010 at Lakmé Fashion Week. Featuring a blend of ethnic yet contemporary looks inspired by stories of the past, there was a great Indo-Global twist to the garments.

Mixing the old Gharana with the shawl drapes and the Mughal touches with simple shift dresses with resist dyed khadi or layered silks, the fabrics had a tale to tell all their own. From matka and tussore from Bengal to handloom mangalgiri cotton from Andhra Pradesh and discharged printed silks; Paromita brought forth the beauty of Indian textiles in an interesting and innovative manner.
The embellishments were the highlight with Mughal patkas and the leaf from the pichhwai temple hanging. Placement embroidery, zari gopur or gold temple top borders appeared for textured waistcoats and lehengas which were teamed with collared shirts while French cuffs gave a new more interesting look to fashion.
Colours were restrained with black and white with a bit of red. The silhouettes were influenced by a Kosode the short sleeved kimono to the Mughal jama and angarkhas both popular in men’s clothing. Resist dyeing in the indigo story appeared for layered asymmetrical tunics, bolero wraps and patchwork kimonos.

Divided into three segments the blackm white and red story had khadi dress with asymmetric hemline layered with red mul inner and crushed stole, a kalidar collared angarkha kurta with conifer leaf embroidery and striking cotton dupattas. The indigo story had versions of the patchwork kimono, khadi dyed shift dress, discharge calico print dress, teamed with layered gheras. The final colour story featured Mangalgiri for capes, kalidar kurtas with embroidered placket and discharge print flared dress in green/red worn with cotton half dyed salwar pants.

For a fusion look that works on the “glocal” platform, Paromita Banerjee’s collection presented a strong definite fashion picture.

Digvijay Singh for Bhusattva has inspirations which are always organic in nature and this time for the Winter/Festive 2010 season at Lakmé Fashion Week his theme was the rare Rafflesia flower with the collection having an unusual name like “Tidak Ada Lagi” which means “there are not many left” in Malay.

Staying true to his theme, the silhouettes of the collection were inspired by the flower but with a marked Indian touch giving a flowing elegant look to the creations. The fabrics were of course organic in nature and so were the dyes. Pastels played with greasy whites and purple with just a few touches of red and green for the very natural fabrics like cotton satin, blends, kora, modal and matka silk.

Surface texturing is a strong point with Digvijay which was very evident on the elegant garments. French knots added class to the shapes of the motifs using the flower as the central theme. Giving the apparel a very feminine touch, Digvijay added on amazing texturing which gave a unique depth and beauty to the creations.

Nachiket Barve is an alumnus of the National Institute of Design [NID] as well as a scholarship holder at Ecole Nationale Superieur des arts Decoratifs [ENSAD] Paris and worked with Michael Kors at CELINE. He taught at NID for a semester.In March 2007, Nachiket launched his label at Lakme Fashion Week through Gen Next and has shown seven highly acclaimed collections since. Nachiket’s work has appeared in all major publications and also been lauded by Suzy Menkes, of the International Herald Tribune and Carine Roitfeld, Editor in chief of VOGUE Paris. He has been included in the book “ Contemporary Indian Design” published by Damiani, Italy.He was the first Indian designer to be invited to show at Buenos Aires Fashion Week [BAAM] in Argentina, as well as at Coterie in New York and the AAPI Convention in FloridaIn 2010, Nachiket won the “Young Fashion Entrepreneur of the Year” Award by The British Council and Elle and he represented India in London.

Nachiket Barve’s inspirations and titles for his collection are always off the beaten track. This time it is called “The Magpie” and one would wonder how a bird so ordinary could be an inspiration for creations.

But Nachiket’s line at Lakmé Fashion Week Winter/Festive 2010 did not only have the magpie for inspiration but paintings from Ukraine, Faberge eggs, star motifs from Morocco, fossil imprints, tropical sunsets and decadent times in Marrakesh, Acapulco and Ibiza. With such an impressive lineup of inspirations the colour selection was as wide with carmine, scarlet, burgundy, jade, celadon, and turquoise moving onto plum, sienna, purple, deep coral, cranberry, amethyst, burnt orange, tobacco, old rose, ink blue, green and quetzal all mixed together very cleverly to give perfect assortment.

SAC says “This time, during the event, we’re planning to have a stall dedicated to the NID community. The students, faculty, etc, can make exclusive Garba merchandise and put it up for sale at this stall. Exclusive meaning that no two products in the stall will be the same! By merchandise, it could mean anything from illustrations to posters to postcards to junk jewellery to pen-stands to bookmarks to audiovisual content and anything else you can come up with! Of course, the theme of the product should be “Garba”!

-Please make these products out of cheap material, thrown away material and do recycle waste, because the cost of production will NOT be compensated by the institute or the SAC.

-Prices will be decided by the Garba 2010 team. One can always suggest the price he/she would like the product to cost.

-Students/faculty making the product will NOT get any monetary profit in case of it’s sale. Their names cannot be associated with the products officially as it is against the institute’s rules for any student to sell a commodity under his/her personal name while being a student of NID.

Whatever money that we earn from sale of items will go in the SAC account for future expenses. So, if one is concerned about the money, it will come back indirectly for students’ benefit.

Anyways, the reason why we have taken this initiative is not to make any profit. This year one of the SAC’s aim is to connect the city of Ahmedabad the NID student body. Apart from social service initiatives which will be taken by the SAC this year, Garba is a platform where we can share our work, thoughts and solutions with people from outside the NID community. This is the larger context to this initiative and we are hoping for a real positive response from specially the student body.

Think about it, everyone gets to go home with an exclusive item as a souvenir of being a part of a rare “NID experience”!

http://www.trans-urban.net/2050/exhibitions/soho.htm?pid=608#Candiotti