Irani launches 3 projects to create indigenous fashion trends, virtual museum

Textiles Minister Smriti Zubin Irani Tuesday launched three projects of National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) including VisionNXT, a trend forecasting initiative. The VisionNxt initiative will create an indigenous fashion forecasting service which endeavours to design seasonal directions for the country, the minister said here.

The proposed service is based on the premise that fashion is a dynamic industry which depends on seasonal trends and forecast for the future course of action. "It will help handloom sector in the production of handloom products as per the market requirement in terms of trends, design and colour forecast," she added.

The other two projects are -- Indian textiles and craft repository and Design Innovation and Incubation (DII). The repository will develop a virtual museum of textiles, and textile crafts, a designer archive, indigenous case studies, and also act as an aggregator of online information on related research.

Virtual museum will have digitised resource of traditional archived pieces from museums, resource centres, weavers' service centres. Similarly, DII is intended to support young entrepreneurs, artisans, start-ups, NIFT alumni and students.

It would also facilitate collaborations relevant for business development. It has been decided to set up incubation facilities (regional incubators) in Mumbai, New Delhi and Bengaluru campuses of NIFT. The minister also inaugurated a renovated Handloom Haat here.

(With inputs from agencies.)