Fashion designer Narendra Kumar and Harry Cheng of Maido India announced a new partnership “to bring Japanese inspired designs to India, and the world”, over a beautiful Japanese tea ceremony recently hosted at the Four Seasons Hotel in Mumbai.
Kumar will open the upcoming Van Heusen India Men’s Week (VHIMW) in New Delhi. His show will be the first time in India that an entire collection has been inspired by Japan. Kumar is using textile designs inspired by Japan and experimenting with new hand-dyed technique textiles to create a completely new style for men.
Kumar said, “My visit to Japan was amazing. I changed my perspectives and it has added an entirely new dimension to my creativity. Japan has inspired me to create this collection, and I believe that we can create designs for the Indian, Japanese, and overseas markets.” Cheng added, “It gives me great pleasure to have introduced Japan to Narendra-san. I am pleased to see the experiences of Japan come alive in his new collection. Japan and India have a lot to share, and am pleased to be working to foster further positive relations between India, Japan, and the rest of the world.”
Two ladies dressed in the traditional Japanese ‘Yukata’ conducted the tea ceremony to showcase the elegance of ‘omotenashi’ which means ‘true Japanese hospitality of welcoming and treating the guest with utmost respect’. This was followed by a sneak preview of Kumar’s Japan inspired collections for VHIMW.
Maido India and Kumar will also work towards promoting further cross-cultural collaborations within Japan and India, not only in the fashion industry, but other areas where Indian and Japanese youth can interact, such as graphic design, animation and manga, and more. As part of this effort, Narendra Kumar and Maido India will launch a unique Annual Design Award “Inspired by Cool Japan” for Indian designers. Every year, Maido India will select an Indian designer to visit Japan. The trip to Japan, sponsored by Maido India, will allow the designer to take inspiration from Japan and apply it to his or her next collection.
