Hindustan Zinc rural women empowerment project “Sakhi” was all glittering with fashion garments on a night when the designs created by them were showcased on the ramp by Delhi and Mumbai professional models and watched by none other than the home minister, women and child development minister and a large gathering of top designers of the country and fashion students besides many dignitaries.

After three months of meticulous planning, 45 days of hard work and immense brainstorming sessions on designs, look and fashion trends, the city of Jaipur finally hosted the first ever fashion show of garments made directly by rural and tribal women of Hindustan Zinc’s project “Sakhi”, to a jam-packed 500 strong audience.

Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria, Women and Child Development Minister Anita Bhadel, MLA, Sawai Madhopur and the brand ambassador for ‘Beti Bachao’ campaign Diya Kumari and director Women Empowerment Richa Khoda had specially come to the see the collection made by the rural women.

Renowned fashion designer Jattinn Kochhar, Rajdeep Ranawat, Gaurav Gupta and Anand Bhushan who attended the show were mesmerized to see the garments made by the “Sakhi” rural women. Miss India 2014, Koyal Rana enthralled the audiences as the show stopper for the evening.

Fashion designer Jattinn Kochhar also had an interactive session with these women who are all from Kayad and Gagwana villages of Ajmer district.

Under the Project “Sakhi”, 50 rural women of villages of Gagwana and Kayad in the district of Ajmer had been working for almost two months to make designer garments. An exclusive training in this regard was provided to these rural women, most of whom are educated, as part of the development of “Sakhi” product cluster on fashion garments.

The show was directed and choreographed by leading Asian choreographer Rashmi Virmani.

Pavan Kaushik, who is the Head of Corporate Communication and also Head of Project “Sakhi” informed that the focus is to develop a hub of karigars that can help fashion designers, fashion students and other fashion experts from across the country. “With this cluster, Hindustan Zinc is aiming to create a sustainable employment for these women. This will also encourage thousands of rural women to take-up this creative art”, Pavan said.

Akhilesh Joshi, President, Zinc Business, Vedanta group informed “Sakhi” is making school uniforms and schools can approach these rural women for making their school uniforms for a better price. Currently the uniform cluster is busy in making school uniforms for the Anganwadi children.

The trainers, Zakir Khan and Rajni Kaur Khan and his team of 6 people, were before being engaged for such training for the rural women were also given a 6 days orientation program by Hindustan Zinc to enable them to bring desired results. To strengthen designing and execution, Hindustan Zinc engaged a Stylist from Delhi, Joyjeet, who spent a number of days bringing finishing and styling to the garments.

Asha Baxi the former dean of National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) and perhaps the first fashion faculty of India visited these women along with the students and faculty of Fashion Design to give them tips and design sentiments.

Hindustan Zinc also decided to show-case a sequence of 12 uniforms with different combinations and textures. But it was also decided to use only Anganwadi children to present the uniform collection. 12 children were selected from Ajmer to wear the collection.

The group of 50 women worked passionately round the clock to have finally made 62 garments including sarees, salwar kurtas, kurtees, kaftans and school uniforms in a record time of about 45 days.