Rohit Gandhi-Rahul Khanna's 'Ode to Joy' evokes joie de vivre

New Delhi, Oct 17 (UNI) Esteemed fashion designer duo Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khanna evoked sheer magic and joie de vivre with their new Spring-Summer 2009 collection at the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week here this evening with their peers J J Valaya and Rohit Bal turning up at the show to show solidarity.

It was a jam-packed house, the screens on both sides of the ramp featured moving films of waves and sounds of chirping birds completed the atmosphere of liveliness and joy.

'Ode to Joy' - the designer's new collection under their popular label 'Cue' featured box shirts, hand woven cottons, jump suits, treggings, engineered volume blouses, knee length sheath dresses and pleated shorts for women.

''Moving away from our earlier collections where we were using whites and greys, this time we used all the colours. We used a lot of coral colour which is going to be really strong the next summer,'' Gandhi told mediapersons after the show.

Rahul Khanna added, ''We had a blast with colours. We used blue, fuschia and lime. It was two months of hard work. Thank God, It's over.'' So, their womenswear had lemon jacket-like tops paired with pants in anti-fit silhouette at the thighs and purple tops with yellow shorts. Orange seems to have found favour with most designers this time. After Manoviraj Khosla's orange jackets and boots for men, it was the turn of orange trousers here. Even the tonal look was tried successfully with a colour like orchid purple for the jacket and trousers for men. ''We had more men than women coming up after the show who were enthusiastic to place orders,'' revealed Rohit Gandhi.

The printing in the collection was inspired from art like the rough use of a brush on canvas and linen was the basic fabric used.

Other fabrics included slim chiffons, hand-woven cottons and gleaming silks. ''We said no to polyester and no to unnatural fabrics,'' Gandhi asserted.

The duo deplored the division of two fashion weeks with newly launched Fashion Foundation of India holding its own Delhi Fashion Week simultaneously here. ''We are sad. It's affecting our work.

We're one family. You could see that we had Rohit Bal coming here to support us. You see, there's no competition between designers.

All the designers are one. It was the British who left behind the divide and rule policy.'' UNI PK BDP CS2118