Fashion TV Has Invested In Real Estate In India. Here Is What This Means

The wrought-iron curtain rod seems unremarkable. But, a century ago, wealthy connoisseurs could not have built them without interior designers. When the rest of the world heard about how the wealthy lived, they wanted it too. Over the years, their desire for the unattainable blurred the boundaries between luxury and necessity. The wrought-iron curtain rod once had more to do with fashion and luxury than with privacy. Today, not one man in a million would notice this. But then, privacy too, was once a luxury.

Today, while watching Fashion TV in the privacy of our rooms, we do not notice that without such instantaneous transmission of information, luxuries would never become necessities. Even the privacy of our own rooms would not have become possible. But, architecture and fashion are as dependent on each other as they are on instantaneous transmission of information. Architects and fashion designers have so much learn from each other because both strive to create aesthetically appealing, habitable structures.

Fashion TV's recent entry into real estate in India, hence, should be seen in this larger context. In 2015, Fashion TV joined hands with Indian real estate developers to launch residential projects in Pune, Noida and Mumbai. In July, they partnered with New Modern Buildwell, a Lucknow-based builder to develop an ultra-luxury residential project in Lucknow. In Mumbai, they have tie-ups with the Nahar Group and Eiffel Developers. This is not merely a commercial act, though its true that luxury residences are in great demand, particularly from high net-worth individuals. But when fashion brands collaborate with real estate developers and architects, a much-needed social and cultural transformation is likely to happen.

Across the world, architects and fashion designers are attempting to see how their disciplines are connected to each other. But, this is not new. The legendary French fashion designer Coco Chanel once said, “Fashion is architecture: it is a matter of proportions.”

Architecture has always inspired the work of fashion designers like Christian Dior and Gianfranco Ferré. Architects have designed accessories, art pavilions, catwalk shows, and flagship stores for fashion houses. When fashion houses and real estate developers work together, their work will be increasingly relevant to home buyers, fashion consumers and the world. Their strengths will reinforce each other.

Remember: the wrought-iron curtain rod is not an anomaly in the history of interior design. In every corner of your home, you would see standing testaments to the blurring boundaries between luxury and necessity. In 1591, windows were such a novelty that the architect, who designed houses, did not know how to fit them in. Windows evoked loud gasps of admiration and spawned epigrams like “Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall”, but rarely did they fit in well with the spaces it lighted.

As late as the mid-1970s, bathrooms with chrome fittings and floors and walls made of marble were privileges reserved for millionaires in Manhattan. The truth is that when home buyers develop more refined tastes, they are more likely to see fashion and art as means to build beautiful homes, and not as status symbols. Over decades, home buyers in India will see that design has as much to do with functionality as it has to with aesthetic standards.

The transformation will be reflect in building stock too. Shopping malls, restaurants, hotels and other public places too will raise their standards to attract customers, who would have otherwise preferred the comfort of their own homes. To many, such innovations might seem more a matter of appearance than of substance. When we think of art, we rarely think of the building stock.

But, if Indian cities would appear more beautiful hundred years from now, it would be because of the quality of the building stock. If art matters, shouldn't the art behind the clothes we wear, the malls we shop at, and the homes we live in matter too?