But hope and cheerfulness overtook sombre sadness. Brightness and lightness, and liveliness of colours with lot of white created an atmosphere of change, change to better, for the bright and simple.

Simplicity joined together with an imaginative decorativeness to accentuate femininity. It reached up to soft and natural colours, which provided a modern interpretation of romance. In the very young styles the tone was frankly sensuous.

Thus the summer of 2000 would be colourful but not gaudy. A pleasant and harmonious colourfulness would reflect a lively and positive feeling. White and off-white standing for purity and freshness lead the way into the new millennium. The whites really dominated thefashion shows conducted by GDS, Portuguese and Indian institutions. The thrice daily shows were one of the major attractions of the four-day GDS fair.

The summer fashions has revealed an incredibly wide variety of innovative materials for the fabrics and garments, an area Indian designers and manufacturers have a lot to learn. Subtle surface effects are made on fabrics and fleeces. The crashed and creased optic, bubbly shapes, structured materials, semi-transparents, fine shines, with a very fine layer in paper-look all form part of the new image. The net and crochet additions with their artistic borders or patterns and often in contrast element were reminiscent of the old hippies. The woven-in titanic threads gave a metallic glitter to the more light weight fabrics.

The layer looks were been changed so that one places organdy, voile or lace over patterned or differently coloured heavier fabrics. The coarsely knitted pull overs are made with imaginative loopings or fringings. The fabrics had prints withfloral designs.

The shoe models for the new millennium were mainly in two main groups. The sporty types which have some new ideas and which will form a large part of the everyday shoewear.

Secondly the feminine type, revealing not the old ideas of lady and gallantry, but expressing the modern interpretation of feminine and romantic themes with more decorative allure.

In this way the overall shapes vary a lot from the widely rounded to the exaggeratedly slim. The heels can be very high or completely flat, they can be mid-sized or very high stilettoes. More imaginative heel forms are made along the straighter or back set types and the wedge variety.

pThe shoe fashions receive impulse from the new colours and the attractive materials now available. The central theme is everything should be light and the colours should give a note of freshness. Hence the prominence of white and light grey. This does not rule out the relevance of bright colours such as yellow-green, pink, red. Fashion trend setters said itis certain that just relying on the safe colours like black and ocean blue will not get one through the coming summer season.

The important colour themes and trends for the next summer/spring are:-