He’s got fashion in his DNA
View(s):With the 14th edition of Colombo Fashion Week round the corner, its founder Ajai Vir Singh talks of his driving passion
By Tarini Pilapitiya
Setting the bar high is a concept Ajai Vir Singh knows only too well. Indian by birth, Ajai has become a Sri Lankan in every sense and is totally committed to his vision of making this country a fashion hub for the region.
Ajai Vir Singh in the forefront of Sri Lanka’s fashion scene. Pic by M.D. Nissanka
Colombo Fashion Week (CFW), the movement he created, searching out promising designers and giving them a platform to present their work has grown beyond all expectations. Now in its 14th year, it is constantly evolving, with Ajai’s determined quest to open our eyes to the endless opportunities that lie in the fashion industry.
Holding an MBA degree in International Business from the University of Sydney, Ajai has lived in Sri Lanka for the past 21 years, and along the way has also launched his own successful brands – Arugam Bay, Stringhopper and Conscience.
Approaching fashion from a people perspective, he sees it as a basic societal need. For Ajai, fashion isn’t superficial, it’s a deep requirement of society, “It’s like a second skin,” he states. Every person from every level of society has a need for clothing and they also have an ingrained fashion sense, he believes.
“Fashion is an identity,” Ajai philosophically adds, an identity which changes with the wearer’s level of sophistication and level of consciousness and as a society indulges us to think creatively.
Fashion did not figure that large in his childhood, though. It was something pre-teen Ajai read about in outdated GQ magazines hanging clipped on the road side shops, which he used to pick up along with football magazines. Aspiring to pursue a professional football career in Italy, Ajai chuckles about the vast occupational change he has made.
His own fashion sense in a sense, was influenced by his father’s military career – he recalls his dad dressed in formal, perfectly pressed clothes, not a crease out of place and very “old school”. “He would change clothes all the time.” His mother, a stylish military wife would wear her sarees, pants and short hair in a similar immaculate manner.
His first visionary design was buying a new pair of jeans when he was around 11- 12, and on finding the jeans didn’t fit (like the Calvin Klien ads!), taking them to the military tailor, ripping the seams and styling it exactly the way he wanted. As a young adult he travelled far and wide across India, even to Nepal, he grins, “ in the quest for clothes”. He even recalls a time where they wore snakeskin pants and boots influenced by Jim Morrison from the band ‘The Doors’.
Fashion is a “part of my DNA”, he says and when making design decisions he is driven by “a good gut feeling” which is strongly supported by the grace of God, his spirituality coupled with his meticulous precision to detail.
Though visitors see only the few glamorous nights on the ramp, in organising CFW Ajai has a two to five year plan in place, with designers mentored and groomed for a full year. He recalls how in past years, with slumps in the fashion industry a good designer was hard to come by. Now designers call, eager to be a part of this initiative. His objectives when guiding local designers is to “free them with fashion” and to “make design come to them”.
| Fashion for goodAs Colombo Fashion Week hits the ramp from March 13-18 this year, CFW is highlighting ethical fashion, which Ajai Vir Singh prefers to term “Fashion for Good”, – celebrating initiatives that help supply chains, the environment and sourcing materials in a more ethical fashion. Humbled by the response he has received, Ajai hopes to further promote CFW and “Garments without guilt” supporting designers who take the ethical path. “I want to celebrate Colombo for that one week,” Ajai declares. CFW begins with the emerging designers, chosen by an expert panel of judges and mentored by team CFW. In order to sharpen every designer’s platform, Ajai has encouraged the young designers with the assistance of film directors to shoot a one minute fashion film of their inspiration for the collection that they will show on the ramp. As Ajai points out, it showcases how fashion binds so many industries like film, art, food etc. Ajai and his CFW team, this time round have also launched the ‘Designer Development Programme’ consisting of three initiatives. The first ‘Project 7’ – a series of 12 sessions is for up and coming designers to improve their creativity. The second initiative – CFW Day reaches out to university level local designers, and the third, the mentorship programme helps build a stronger sense of exposure and guidance for established designers. As at previous CFWs, this time too, five premier fine dining restaurants will exhibit their expertise in creating exciting new menus mirroring the collections presented at CFW. Art will meet fashion too as this year Ajai brings in five well known artists, getting them inspired by fashion and giving them the space to create. Knowledge workshops covering photography, film direction, fashion illustration – with a New York fashion illustrator and stylist are also part of the programme. | |