The National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) made all the difference to the Indian fashion ecosystem, according to the institute’s Delhi director, Vandana Narang.

“We have changed the mom-and-pop culture to a professionally-managed system. A lot of senior designers have taken over as chief executives of companies. Like ITC, for instance, may ideally be managed by a marketing person, but it is headed by a NIFT graduate from knitwear design,” Narang said.

“Over all, when we started, NIFT was the pioneer of fashion education in India. At that time, there was no proper curriculum or hand-holding. When NIFT was launched, the government took the support of Nottingham Trent University as well as Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) New York, with FIT as mentor campus and faculty members from Nottingham were requested to contribute. They started with a very open mind about what fashion education in India should be,” she also added.

Narang spoke about faculty members for the first ten years being sent abroad for training, and the support that came both from the government of India as well as a project of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

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