Narendra Kumar from being listed in Esquire Magazine ‘50 Best Men’s Stores In The World ‘ as a designer, has donned many hats in the fashion business in India. Apart from being the Creative Director launching  Amazon Fashion in India has also styled Bollywood stars Mr. Bachchan, Aamir Khan, Priyanka Chopra to name a few, and styled Bollywood’s seminal film ‘Fashion’ by Madhur Bhandarkar starring Priyanka Chopra and Kangana Ranaut, he has also been India’s first Fashion Editor having launched Elle Magazine, to being a filmmaker and photographer with one of his films ‘ The Marriage of Shayla Patel ‘opening the Brisbane International film festival in 2017. Corporate design has been a leading area of work for him having worked with India’s leading hotel chains Taj group and JW Marriott.

He has also helped launch India  Fashion Week and Lakme Fashion week and represented India at the Biennale in St. Ettiene France.

Known for his socio-anthropological fashion vision and considered one of India’s leading designers with an intellectual bent, he continues to make forays into new and challenging fields with the launch of a sportswear brand ‘Alcis X Nari ‘ made entirely from recycled plastic bottles.

Panelist 2: Nitin Kalra

He has been involved with dynamic new business so far, right from working on setting up of the mobile and internet divisions of Rajshri Media to setting up Publishing and new alliances for Star India. His strengths have been to conceptualize and create business opportunities, sourcing right partners, working out deals and setting up the relationship and then handing over to a professional team to run day to day operations.

He is the Regional Director – India, SAARC & MENA, AI MENA is a full service licensing company based in the Media City, Dubai. The company operates as a licensing agency managing brands such as Doraemon & Purple Turtle and also acts as a sourcing / trading company, offers event services and creative services to clients based across the GCC region.

He is also the Director of Animation International India Pvt. Ltd. Formerly known as Kids Media India and then AI Licensing India, Animation International India is the first non-studio licensing agency in India. The company has a rich portfolio of brands Doraemon, Garfield, Shin Chan, Hallmark Design Collection, Charlie Chaplin, Purple Turtle & Albert Einstein, etc. The company is part of the Animation International Group headquartered in Hong Kong with offices in over 17 countries.

With a full service office in Mumbai, the company has five core business streams – Licensing (Character Brands & Lifestyle), Exports & Trading, Creative Studio, Syndication and Xperium (experiential licensed events)

Having started in the company as “Head – Licensing???, he was promoted to be the Director of the company, with a seat on the Board of Directors in December 2011. In his current capacity, he runs the company on a day-to-day basis with a strict vigil on sales numbers & targets for each brand and also acts as the face of the company in the media & international stage.

Panelist 3: Taruna Vasu

Taruna Vasu is a fashion designer and academician working in fashion and design education for nearly 20 years. She graduated from Nift Gandhinagar and moved on to do bachelors and masters with arts and fashion related subjects. Currently she is pursuing her Doctorate with IIS University.

She is currently the Associate Director and Head of Department of School of Fashion Design at UID. She has been involved with various fashion and design institutes in varied capacities such as faculty, external expert, University Board of Studies, Course leader and Campus Director. She was previously also the Honorary Dean for Design at RISU, the first Skill University of Rajasthan.
Her core areas of specialism span through Contextual Studies, Craft Research and development, Design Process, Product development and Design pedagogy. Laced with a Post Graduate Certificate in Higher education from NTU, she strives to develop strategies to innovate with the Teaching, learning and assessment strategies with a focus to accelerate student engagement and enhance their learning
experience.
She has also worked on a few craft and design intervention projects apart from presenting research papers on fashion, craft and pedagogy at various national and international platforms.

Moderator: Ajay Bisht

Ajay has worked in various fields of fashion communication for the past 18+ years with a focus on retail clients, product  communication, conceptualization and branding in both external agency and internal creative environments.
His extensive experience with photography driven projects (concepts, layout design, casting, production, on-set direction,  editing, etc.) allows him to seamlessly execute large complex initiatives with equal attention to creative, process and  efficiency.

His expertise extends to visual brand strategy, print and digital catalogs, ad campaigns, PR campaigns, POS/in-store  displays & signage, website, mobile and brand identity design.