Darkness – Day Two of the Hyderabad Fashion week can be encapsulated in that one word.
The green room was engulfed in darkness on Friday as models stumbled around and guests shuffled into the ballroom of the Sheraton Hyderabad in the dark, little knowing that the show would not even begin.
Everyone was kept in the dark, literally as well as figuratively. But as cheques bounced, models remained unpaid and unfed, light dawned that something was very wrong with the Hyderabad Fashion Week.
A person who was helping out a designer with the first segment says, “Our segment was the first one, but when our models went to get ready, we were engulfed in darkness. The organiser, Raghav, kept making silly excuses saying that the generator had failed but when we spoke to the hotel management they said that none of their bills were paid.”
“It was so embarrassing. For the first segment we had invited a couple of politicians and they started arriving. We had to send them back,” adds the person on condition of anonymity.
Designer Rajdeep Ranawat was excited about his show in Hyderabad. He was set to launch his festive collection with 30 outfits for women and five outfits for men, but a couple of hours before his show he found out that the models were about to leave.
“I was invited to be part of the show and we felt that it was a great experience to launch my collection here. But at around 7.30 pm on Thursday we found that the show was cancelled,” says an irate Rajdeep, adding, “Apparently, the cheques that the models were given bounced and so they decided to walk out.”
Moreover, the tired models weren’t even allowed to eat at the hotel. “When the models went to eat food, there were sent back! They were told that if they wanted to eat, they would have to pay. The hotel management was also not paid...” says another person who was part of the show.
The organisers apparently did not pay the models on Day 1 too. “The organiser, Raghav, assured us that we would receive money on Day 2, so the show went ahead on Day 1. But we didn’t get our money on Day 2 either,” says another source.
The organiser was even locked up in a room at one point. “They got hold of him and confronted him. The models were really angry with what was happening and they wanted answers... so they locked him in a room and a lot of screaming and chaos followed,” said another source at the venue.
Another source at the event says, “We are stuck at the hotel. There are 38 models in total, two fashion choreographers and two backstage managers. None of us have been paid and we have nowhere to go because our tickets are booked for tomorrow...what do we do? The person who organised this event, Raghav, has been doing this show for four years...so you can’t even say that it is the first time he’s doing this.”
The management at the Sheraton Hyderabad Hotel did not want to comment other than saying that they didn’t have anything to do with the show other than providing the venue.
And while there were rumours that Day 3 of the Fashion Week would go on as scheduled, Rajdeep says, “I will not go back… I can’t believe that I missed the birth of my son for this show.”
