Wills Lifestyle announced a first of its kind initiative for recognizing India’s promising young talent in fashion arena – ‘The Debut’. ‘The Debut’ aims to encourage students of fashion through showcasing, recognizing and rewarding outstanding talent.

This year, ‘The Debut’ is open to students from the country’s prestigious fashion institute NIFT across various disciplines of design - fashion, leather, textile, knitwear and accessories. The initiative spans across the seven centres of NIFT -- New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad and Gandhinagar.

A rigorous 3 round process evaluates the collections designed by the contestants on the basis of Design, Technical and Commercial Competencies. The first round comprises evaluation of an illustration-based design portfolio. Short-listed entrants showcase garments converted from the entry illustrations before an eminent jury - at the regional round to be held at Wills Lifestyle stores in Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata.

This leads up to the ‘The Debut Finale’ where contestants short-listed from the regional rounds showcase their creations on the fashion runway at the Wills Lifestyle store in South Extension, New Delhi. An eminent panel of representatives of ITC, NIFT and FDCI will judge the winner – who gets to visit international fashion fair ‘Pret –a-Porter, Paris’ and will be recognized with an award at the country’s most prestigious fashion event ‘Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week Autumn Winter 07’, hosted by FDCI.

Atul Chand, Vice President (Marketing), ITC’s Lifestyle Retailing said, “The Debut is a unique platform that will promote young fashion talent. This is yet another milestone in our commitment towards wider engagement with the Indian fashion fraternity. The very first edition of the contest has received an overwhelming response and we wish the very best to all the young contestants.”

The initiative has created high excitement amongst the student fraternity with more than 200 entries having been received.