September 7, 2003

From the moment fashion designer Kamiar Rokni walks into the room, one realizes this is not going to be an ordinary interview. When he starts talking about wanting to be a designer since he was five years old, dressing up as a child, his life-long admiration of Yves St. Laurent and his love of a wide gamut of books, including romance novels, it is clear that he’s not your typical Pakistani male. With his impish looks – he’s been described as looking like a miniature painting – effortless fashion sense and genuine love of his work, he makes quite a first impression.

However, it is his eyes that make the strongest impact. Dark and intense, they speak of fathomless desires and when one looks into them, it suddenly becomes clear why Lahore has not been the same since he ‘arrived’ on the fashion scene. Sometimes twinkling like Puck, other times wounded like Heathcliff, and at other moments determined and ambitious like Tom Cruise, their vast range of emotions explain why he is so successful at such a young age. Although just 26, Kami, as he is known to friends, fans and clients, is not only one of the most successful designers in Pakistan today, he also pens a popular weekly column for an English newspaper. He intends to write a novel, while simultaneously working towards his vision of building his fashion house into a lifestyle store.

Kami’s warm and friendly nature welcomes discussion and invites questions. His eyes light up at the mention of Karma, and he is eager to talk about its origins.

“Everything happened by accident,” he summarizes with a smile, which is hard to believe. As he elucidates, it becomes clear hard work, determination and a strong belief in his talent ensured that not much was left to chance.

 

‘Nobody seems to be bothered with elegance any more. People bother about evening wear, but I would like to see people dressed nicely all the time. Tailors have this ‘we don’t really care’ attitude. Hems are crooked! As if they are not responsible for what they are creating. This is the general attitude in Pakistan. People need to start believing in excellence. It’s up to designers to try and raise standards’
 

“When I graduated from the Pakistan School of Fashion Design in 2000, everyone was applying for jobs and getting offers to make T-shirts and sportswear, to be apprentices. This was not something my classmate Maheen Kardar or I wanted to do. We wanted to have an exhibition to gauge people’s response. They liked our clothes straight off and started buying them, so we never even got around to holding that exhibition!”

Kami and his enterprise have never looked back.

“We started with casual wear and have built up to what we do today, which includes western, casual, event wear and bridal. The label represents an individual look. A good fusion of East and West.”

Kami focuses more on the designing while Kardar handles most of the administrative and business aspects, but that line often blurs. The designer enjoys working with a partner.

“Maheen and I get along really well, so it’s not difficult. I believe in practical delegation but I do like to get involved. Since there are two of us, it’s so much easier to be involved.”

He enjoys working with the models – “all my girlies,” he says cheekily – and particularly with photographers Ather-Shahzad. More than anything, however, the designer loves clothes. His favourite outfit that he designed so far was a white, two-layered chiffon dress for his best friend Maleeha Mustafa, a Lahore-based model. “It looked sensational,” he raves.

“My personal design philosophy is ‘have style, but don’t worry too much about fashion’,” he opines. “What’s in doesn’t necessarily mean what’s good.”

When exactly was it that the fashion bug bit him?

“I never wanted to do anything else,” he says. He’s always been drawn to the fantasy aspect of fashion and still enjoys the wonder of transforming looks today.

“Through fashion, you can become someone else,” Kami explains. “You go into this other world and come back and be yourself. It’s ever changing, this ability to assume different identities. I really like that. One day Audrey (Hepburn), one day (Bridgette) Bardot. It’s about aspirations.”

So what does Kami himself aspire to?

“General greatness,” comes the reply.

He dreams of becoming a fashion designer of international repute and has already won a design competition in Japan – the Makohari Grand Prix – in 1999 while still in fashion school.

“I am very concerned with quality,” he explains. “I’d love to change the average middle-class person’s sense of dress. Grooming is lacking in Pakistan. The upper class is polished but the average person’s clothes are not stitched properly and don’t fit right. Standards were better in our parents’ generation; vintage 70s clothes were very well-made.”

Kami becomes more and more passionate as he continues.

“Nobody seems to be bothered with elegance any more. People bother about evening wear, but I would like to see people dressed nicely all the time. Tailors have this ‘we don’t really care’ attitude. Hems are crooked! As if they are not responsible for what they are creating. This is the general attitude in Pakistan. People need to start believing in excellence. It’s up to designers to try and raise standards.”

This designer’s motto is to “live hard, work hard and party hard” and he’s been fortunate to have had support all the way.

“I come from a creative family where a lot of members paint and write. So, I’ve been quite lucky. My family is very supportive and my mom has always encouraged me.”

Kami smiles fondly as he begins to speak of his other favourite topic (next to clothes): his mother.

“I am very close to my mother. She’s influenced my personality in a big way. My mother has taste and so I was a very well dressed child. However, she always encouraged me to choose when in a shop and I have been dressing myself and buying my own clothes since I was six,” he states. Although he says confidently, “I think she is very proud of me,” it’s clear he’s very proud of his mother.

When Kami graduated from fashion school three years ago, he didn’t envision the immediate impact he would have on fashion in Pakistan.

“Karma has come a long way in two years,” he says with pleasure. But he has even greater plans for the fashion house. “I want to make it into a lifestyle store, the kind where you can walk in, buy an outfit, a handbag, a cushion, a lamp, a rug, etc., all representing one aesthetic. Like Ralph Lauren. I think Pakistan is ready for that and I’d like to be the first person to do it.”

So, with so much success and acclaim coming his way, what’s Kami’s favourite part of being a designer?

“When you walk into a room and you’re not expecting it” he reveals, enjoying the suspense, “and someone is wearing your outfit. That’s a great feeling.”

Kami’s eyes may be focused on his outfits and clients, but observers should keep their eyes on the designer himself. Now that he’s arrived on the fashion scene, it’ll be exciting to see how far he’s going to go.

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