AHMEDABAD will host Vibrant Fashion Week from February 14-16 in an attempt to launch the city on the country's fashion map. Modelled on the lines of Lakme Fashion Week and India Fashion Week, the event will see participation from 20 designers from Mumbai. Efforts will be made to present the Kutchi art work to fashion designers and fashion enthusiasts.
Fashion has history and Culture and civilization attached to it, If we talk about fashion and Gujarat we need to go little in past, with the textile industry of the city, in the 19th century, when the city and the industry was established under the British Raj. Textile mills employed thousands of people from across the state, and the cotton garments manufactured were exported across the world. The prosperity of the industry was the mainstay of the city's economy, and Ahmedabad was accordingly termed the “Manchester of the East."
In the 19th century, the textile and garments industry received strong capital investment. On 30 May 1861 Ranchhodlal Chhotalal founded the first Indian textile mill, the Ahmedabad Spinning and Weaving Company Limited. This was followed by the establishment of a series of Technical Textile & Textile mills such as the Calico Mills, Bagicha Mills and Arvind Mills. By 1905 there were about 33 textile mills in the city. The textile industry further expanded rapidly during the First World War, and benefited from the influence of Mahatma Gandhi's Swadeshi movement, in a way Mahatma Gandhi played a major role in the Indian textile industry, we can say fashion is a retail face of the textile industry.
