She, however, adds that with so many institutes in the country churning out thousands of fashion designers every year, tough competition is likely to take place. "The new batches of students will definitely have to work on their creativity and innovation and push themselves hard to carve a niche for themselves in this industry," Ningthibi says.

There are about a hundred institutes and colleges in India today that offer diploma and degree courses in fashion designing. Assuming that every year at least 30 students pass out from these colleges, there are a minimum of 3,000 students that the industry needs to absorb every year. But is the Indian industry large enough to recruit these 3,000 odd freshers on a yearly basis? Malini D, a professor with the National Institute of Fashion Technology says,

"Many companies today are setting up their own in-house design studios, which in turn need talent. So there is a market that is ready to absorb fashion designers today." Apart from the end of the quota regime qualitative factors will also have a role to play in stimulating demand for fashion designers today. Ningthibi says,

"There are a number of fashion designing institutes today. But the industry does not have a good impression of the short-term courses that they offer. So it is basically the students who pass out from reputed institutes after doing long-term courses who stand a chance. Besides experienced designers are the people who the industry is looking out for now." "We at NIFT, anyway, have a good history of placements, with about 65 per cent of our 250 students across the country, being absorbed by the industry. The remaining are the ones who either set up their own designer boutiques or go abroad for higher studies," Malini D points out. "Today, in fact, there are many new avenues for freshers in export houses, in costume designing for films and in visual merchandising as well," Malini points out. NIFT organises campus recruitment programmes where students have the chance of getting recruited by companies like Arvind Garments, Madura Garments, Weekender and Shivani Exports.

The salary for NIFT freshers ranges between Rs 10,000 and Rs 18,000 per month while for students from other fashion institutes the salary could start from as little as Rs 3000 per month. B D Tejashvi, a final year student at NIFT, concurs, "There is definitely a market for fashion designers today for the simple reason that being fashionable is more acceptable now, than it was earlier." Moreover, not all cities are opening up in terms of designer wear, she says. "Ideally I would like to work in cities like Bangalore, Mumbai or Delhi for a couple of years as other cities are not really happening in terms of designer wear. However, this scenario will change in a couple of years," Tejashvi adds. While there is no denying the fact that fashion designers have a huge opportunity basket waiting only some may end up making the cut. If they do, then the year 2005 may well be a golden year. And as Ningthibi puts it, "Designers do get hefty pay packets."