Feronia Fashion Night is an initiative taken by the team of Redo Times Pvt. Ltd., to raise awareness on the very sensitive topic of gender equality and LBTQ inclusiveness. It is the first androgynous fashion show in India that brings together models from LGBTQ community together take the first steps of their modelling career.
The name Feronia is inspired from the Roman goddess of Freedom, Health, and Abundance. A goddess, who granted freedom to slaves and basic civil rights to the humblest part of society, the legend of Goddess Feronia continues to be a part of the Roman folklore with the Goddess being especially honoured among plebeians and freedmen.
Much like those times, equality is a virtue of the fight of LGBTQ community in today’s era. The LGBTQ community world-wide also needs freedom to live with dignity and there is no greater metaphorical symbol of our struggle for Freedom than Goddess Feronia. At a time when countries are handing death penalties to people for being gay or transgender, perhaps we can draw hope and inspiration from the legend of Feronia
The story of Feronia Fashion Night stems from our firm support for the LGBTQ community. The seeds of the story of Feronia were planted in the mind of our brand consultant, Mr. Prabodh Mishra during a Dandiya Night organized by the Transgender community in Jaipur. The lack of audience at the venue really shook him. There was a bridge that needed to be built between the LGBTQ community and the mainstream Indian society. We wanted to do our bit in helping the Transgenders and alternative sexualities to get the respect they deserve and be a part of our society. The founders of Redo Times – Ms. Deepali Dhruvanshi and Mr. Arpan Choudhary had always envisioned their styling application to cater to all the three genders with any sexual orientations.
After heart felt interactions with the members of the LGBTQ community at the Dandiya Night and afterwards helped us to understand the hopes and aspirations of the community. Many of them expressed a desire to walk the ramp in a fashion show and pursue modelling as a career. We realised that the 24 ft runaway wasn’t just the means for ramp walk for them, it was a podium that signified hope – that presented an opportunity to showcase their dreams and ambitions to the world, making a statement that they can achieve as much as the socially accepted gender binary if given the opportunity.
This was the genesis of Feronia Fashion Night – India’s first androgynous fashion show where only the members of the LGBTQ community grace the ramp as the models of the show telling their story through the medium of fashion. Our team connected with likeminded individuals like Mr. Amar Mithapalli, a designer and a choreographer, who became an integral part of our endeavour managing the operations of the event and Mr. Vikram Swami, founder of ITXITPro Pvt. Ltd. a full-scale IT company with a team of dedicated experts experienced in Design, Development, Branding and online advertising, who became associated with the event as technology partner.
Ten months and two events later, we are continuing our fight for equal rights through the medium of fashion and the story of Feronia Fashion Night is still being written as we hope to turn a new leaf for the society spreading the message of equality in different parts of India.
We really hope that there comes a time when there is no requirement for events like Feronia Fashion Night at any corner of the world, but until then we are committed to our fight for equal rights of the third gender and the alternate sexualities.
