Designer sets out to redefine workwear for Indian women

New Delhi, March 10 (IANS) The sight of women in resort-wear in business conferences, home-wear in meetings and shirts with drooping shoulders have led designer Varija Bajaj to venture into a label focusing on Indian culture, body shapes and skin tone which is targeted at working women professionals.

"It's not who they (the women) are. It's the choice they are imposed with in the name of comfort, availability and lack of awareness," Bajaj told IANS as she rued the lack of a workwear segment for women which "just doesn't exist in the Indian context".

With research, she deduced that the supply chain -- from the yarn to the ideal textiles to the end customer -- is completely oblivious of what should be ideal workwear for Indian women.

"The Indian body structure is very different from our western counterparts. With extensive research on Indian body types, we have realized that an average Indian body of a woman is 5 ft 2 inch with narrow shoulders and is pear shaped vis-a-vis 5 ft 6 inch, broader shoulders and rectangle or an apple shaped Western women," Bajaj explained.

With her brand Office&You, launched on International Women's Day, the designer has applied figure correction techniques through which they camouflage most defects and give an illusion of a relatively perfect figure.

"Providing appropriateness in the given cultural surroundings has been a strong guiding factor for us to design," she said, adding that the size guide is customised to Indian pear shaped body types to accommodate large and pear shaped bodies.