East India Fashion Week to launch fifth edition in Guwahati

East India Fashion Week will hold its fifth edition in Guwahati from April 28 to 29 and feature collections by 30 local designers. This year, the fashion week will take place in partnership with the Usha Silai School.

As part of the fashion week, women students from the Usha Silai School worked under the mentorship of Assamese designers Nandini Baruah and Meghna Rai Medhi as well as Tsering Dolma from Sikkim, Arbin Tonjam from Manipur, and Escape Engmoia from Mizoram. The students will showcase the garments they created as part of the initiative on the runway at the fashion week, Ad Gully reported.
 
“Usha Silai School is an endeavour to uplift livelihoods of rural women all over the country by providing them with specialised skill sets paving the way for a better tomorrow by developing them as entrepreneurs in their own right,” said Usha Silai Schools, Usha International’s vice president Mary Rupa Tete, Ad Gully reported. “This association with the East India Fashion Week, will further the cause of the Silai School women, creating long-term opportunities for them, and highlighting their potential amongst the design fraternity. This collaboration underscores our commitment to rural women entrepreneurship and women empowerment. We will continue to promote the exceptional work done by women through such opportunities and channels.”

The fashion week is designed to uplift designers, craftspeople, and weavers in East India and celebrate the region’s rich and diverse textile cultures. The event also aims to draw attention from the rest of the country to the region’s unique cultures. 
 
“Having Usha Silai School as partners for the East India Fashion Week is an honour as it is such a powerful initiative aimed at making a transformational difference at the grassroots level to empower women from rural India,” said East India Fashion Week’s founder Medha Saikia. “India has a talent pool of artisans and designers, and when there is a coming together of the right skill sets and resources it is the stuff of entrepreneurial dreams, and Usha International is doing great work in this direction.”