Top header Banner
Top header Banner
Middle top Banner

BizAsia attends the Posh-Rack’s debut event in London

The PosH-RacK – a Dubai-based travel fashion and lifestyle pop-up that curates worldwide designer collections is made its debut in the UK with its first pop–up in London, held on 22nd April at London Hilton, Park Lane. BizAsiaLive.com was present at the day-event, which was free to all and a great way of meeting designers first hand and seeing fashion and jewellery collections first-hand.

Founded by Shefali Munshi, The PosH-RacK is a mobile pop-up that showcases trending fashion from India, Middle East and the sub continent along with select local brands from the host city. The designer line up for this month’s event includes names like Pallavi & Bhairavi Jaikishan, Vikram Phadnis, Jewels by Queenie, Seema Khan, Shehla Khan and Roshni Chopra, along with Dubai-based brands Amber Dubai, OMGEE Accessories, Resortwear, Free Being and Mehreen Noorani from Pakistan. The international names are joined by some of London’s established brands including Red Dot Jewels, Lavanya & Amishi London. BizAsiaLive.com caught up with some of the designers on the day.

“Red Dot Jewels, as well as having our own collection, we also have a great collection by ourselves and other designers. So, our Pop enamel collection is in collaboration with a really talented designer, Aditi. Finally, with the sun out in London, we’ve got some gorgeous new colours – neons, pinks, peaches, blues, and it just brightens up any of your English-wear as well as if you’ve got a resort wedding to go to or going to be wearing those fusion Indian pieces, this goes amazingly with that. It’s[The collection] a little bit of a talking point. If you go somewhere, it might be small detail, but someone is going to pick up you’re wearing this nice Pop enamel pieces. They are also available on our website and they are well priced, ranging between £25 – £80,” said Shalini from Red Dot Jewels when asked about her collection.

When asked if she would consider taking her collection to festivals, Shalini replied, “I would love to go to festivals, but I think because I have my store in West London, that is where most people come too, and actually the website and with this collection in particular, we’re planning to put everything online. Right now, 50% of the collection is online, the new pieces have only come in two days ago. Our main area where Red Dot Jewels is best known for is our bridal collection. That is very much a face-to-face consultative approach to helping style a bride for her biggest day, to make sure she has her perfect pieces. We want people to come in store to have fun with the jewellery. It’s not just for your Asian clothes, it’s for every day, something to wear with your office dress.”

“We’re working on new pieces all the time. We don’t launch formal collections every season, but like every 4-8 weeks we’ll have at least 30-40 new designs, just cause of the way we work. What we do have is our online campaigns, so every four months, for brides specifically. Then all the pret pieces, like this Pop collection, will be every six months or so and we’ll do a photoshoot and collaborate with a lot of the influencers now, like girls who are the faces of Maybelline, L’oreal, MAC, Bobby Brown, for their make-up tutorials and they often pick these sorts of pieces for those tutorials. Which is really good exposure and it’s nice to see Asian brands launch into the mainstream. Because as British Asians, we have an Asian wardrobe, Western wardrobe and then we’ve got the in-between as well and it’s an exciting time to be in” Shalini concluded.

Priyanka, Chief Executive of Dubai-based jewellery brand Biori said, “The brand is called Biori, which means be original. This is an emerging and contemporary accessories brand out of Dubai, UAE, where we are doing beautiful handcrafted accessories made by artisans in sustainable communities for both men and women. The inspiration for the collection for us is that the inspiration lies all around us – your society, your people, your catwalks, your influencers and there is something that we call in our trade as ‘globalisation’, which means taking up global trends and making that acceptable to the customer you’re trying to cater too. So that has primarily been determining factors, which is our customer. Because at the end of the day it all boils down to your customer and they know what they are buying.”

“Since we are an ethical jewellery brand, which means we do not pick toxic metals, we work with up-cycling medium working with premium metals. The finishes are all natural and with the benefits to the environment, it becomes all the more imperative for us to pick up concepts that help us interpret all of these brand ethics beautifully, season on season,” she added. “We are based in Dubai, UAE. We are currently retailing all across the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Eastern Europe and we’re looking at options of expanding in London. With a lot of strong traction here today, I believe we would be able to contribute to the identity quite well to the London people, so yes we’re listening.”

“It depends on if something good and something worth making a travel of, then why not. For us, what’s more important is, whom are we selling too, rather than how much are we selling. The whole idea is to send a message on sustainability and send a message on the importance of ethical issues, the handmade handcrafts, so I don’t want to get into any Tom, Dick or Harry affair and just be known, so I don’t want that. So that way, yes, God has always been kind, so if there is something that comes up in the future, then why not. It’s a great city and I love London, always so much to learn,” ended Priyanka.

Renowned fashion designer Vikram Phadnis told BizAsiaLive.com how he chooses the colours of his collection,”I don’t choose it as per the city I’m visiting or which city I’m showcasing it at, I think it’s the colour of the season and this time I’ve done a lot of beige’s, greys, peaches and creams and that’s the collection I do for the season. So whichever city I’m travelling to, I’ll showcase it then to that part of the word.”

Talking about how London’s crowd matches up to India’s market, Phadnis commented, “It’s not different, but the crowd, they know what they want, what their likes and dislikes are. They know exactly what they’re looking out for, that is great, cause they are aware.”

“In terms of inspiration, I always try to do something different then what I’ve done earlier, where I’ve done deep, dark colours, so this time I wanted to do something light and easy. So there’s no inspiration as per say, I might want to work on florals, or I might want to work on nets, so I think at different times there’s different inspiration, sometimes the colours, sometimes the fabric,” said Phadnis.

Other designers on the day included Amishi London, Shehla Khan, Jewels by Queenie, Seams Pret & Couture, Escapades Lifestyle, Design Tuk Tuk, Roshni Chopra, Pallavi Puri and Lavanya London.