Not Just A Fashion Week | Lakm

Lakmé Fashion Week 2025 felt less like a grand spectacle and more like a quiet conversation—one between fabric and feeling, between tradition and transformation

The petals of 'Lakme Fashion Week 2025 summer collection' unfurled on March 26, 2025 at Mumbai. On the opening day, the scorching heat scarred some of the models' feet as they rushed toward their respective venues. One of them was late. She was at the venue, yet her blood sugar level had dropped. So stressed that her friend had bagged a spot to walk for Tarun Tahiliani. "It is okay, I will get a spot," she muttered. The stress was carried over quickly to the lady standing next to her, the lines on her forehead as deepened as those of the models. She had heard her name twice now, 'Noor Enayat, where is she?' (Consultant, PR and Communications with Fetch Consulting for Lakme Fashion Week). She gulped as the show was about to start.

Enayat exhaled but there were a few breaths which had to exhale even more deeply: the artisans. At least there were eyes to see their whispers here. How does it feel when a whisper, woven in silence, curls like an autumn leaf—devoid of societal chaos—falls softly onto the ramp? And with it, thousands follow. Now, picture them as women in their forties, seated in a small, cubical room, enclosed not just by walls but by a world that has never welcomed them. They wonder—what do these women do? But without any means of communication, their questions remain unheard. These women have never left their village, more precisely, they have never stepped beyond their own homes, nestled in Mount Lebanon. While they mumble among themselves, their hands remain busy—crocheting, weaving—for fashion brand Salim Azzam, questioning their inheritance as Druze. With no idea of the reception their craft is getting approximately 5000 kilometres away in India.

"It is an answer. The collection this time is for all the women I know from back home: my mother, sister and all the Druze women who made it happen," Salim said, standing alongside Kazna Asker and Yousef Akbar. The ramp trembled slightly as the collection, crafted by the hands of women from his community, wowed the crowd at the Lakmé Fashion Week 2025 in Mumbai.

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