they were wearing at events it wasnt just encouraging for designers but also led to foreign diplomats employing fashion diplomacy to promote indian handloom marykay carlson the charge daffaires of the us embassy ran a sareesearch on twitter asking followers which handloom sari she should wear on august 15 the ministrys support to fashion has encouraged foreign diplomats to actively participate in fashion events fashion collaborations with different nations have remained a highlight of 2017 the japanese ambassador and his wife were a part of important events like the fashion show at the crafts museum where smriti irani participated the italian ambassador has offered his residence to host a fashion show and to take a few designers to italy indonesia has also made the same move says fashion design council of india fdci president sunil sethisabyasachi mukherji sunil sethi and smriti irani at the curtain raiser show for textiles india 2017 at crafts museum in delhi bccl ranjit kumar sabyasachi mukherji sunil sethi and smriti irani at the curtain raiser show for textiles india 2017 at crafts museum in delhi bccl ranjit kumar sethi adds that in 2017 state governments took the initiative to promote textiles through fashion state governments today are feeling the need to promote fashion and textile as part of their tourism campaigns in 2017 assam jharkhand and chhattisgarh took major steps in promoting textiles in collaboration with designers and other states like maharashtra are inviting designers to design products with their indigenous textiles we were recently contacted by the odisha government to do one such show says sethi ritu beri who has been the advisor for the khadi and village industries commission kvic and has designed collections promoting khadi adds so far fashion was far away from the governments trajectory but now the ministry is actively engaged in promoting fashion in the countrypm narendra modi at an exhibition at textile india 2017 and below with fdci president sunil sethi at the event pm narendra modi at an exhibition at textile india 2017 pm modi with fdci president sunil sethi at the event pm narendra modi with fdci president sunil sethi at the event government and designers are now a teamfashions own attempts in promoting handloom through shows dedicated to banarasi or khadi did indicate a shift of focus in 2015 when 25 designers came together to present crafts of india with khadi as the focus of the show in the fashion week in delhi the same year there were two dedicated slots for showcasing banarasi weaves the government reached out to fashion for promoting handloom in 2016 during the make in india week in mumbai where a fashion show by the ministry of commerce and industry the department of industrial policy and promotion and the fdci played the precursor to the governmentfashion collaboration which took shape in 2017 the government is trying to create a joint force where weavers designers and retailers work together to create a product keeping in mind what sells in the global