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The man from Paris
One gleans a lot about Punjabi, Paris-based fashion designer Mehmood Bhatti by paying attention to him speaking in different languages. His belligerent nature comes across when he barks in simple Urdu to the hotel operator complaining about the air-conditioning. His savoir faire is felt when he speaks to a Parisian friend over the telephone in faultless French; while his almost innocent persona bubbles when he speaks to me in his almost painful English.
Much has already been documented about Bhatti’s almost Dickensian rise from “a not privileged life” in Lahore to the epicentre of the fashion capital of the world: Paris.
After graduating from Government College Lahore in 1977 he winged it to Paris to study for an MBA degree “without any money. I had zero times zero times zero money. I slept under the Metro. I looked through the garbage for food.” However, he soon found employment at the now defunct retail boutique Mages, first as a cleaner, then a packager, working his way up to become a gregarious salesman. He knew he had the gift of the gab and street smarts, and in three short years he opened his own retail outlet in 1980.
Hence this trip to Pakistan. Bhatti is visiting, first to touch base with his somewhat cloudy, impalpable and decidedly unembraced roots, but also to prepare for a three-city fashion tour to celebrate his 25 years in fashion, an event that will culminate with a large party in Paris.
“I will return on March 13, 2005, and will have a fashion show in Lahore on March 15; Islamabad on March 17, and finally in Karachi on March 19.”
Bhatti will employ Parisienne cabines (runway models) with “hair and make up people and the choreographer also coming from Paris.” All proceeds from the show will be donated to the Umeed-i-Noor charity.
The past year has been quite an eventful and prestigious one for Bhatti. On March 23, 2004 Bhatti received the Sitara-i-Imtiaz, the highest honour bestowed to a civilian. “I felt very good receiving this honour. It was a very important milestone for me. You
receive it once but it stays with you for a lifetime. It has given me the incentive to work even harder for and in Pakistan.” He has already embarked on a slew of charitable endeavours in the form of creating scholarships at the National College of the Arts (NCA); three in the Fine Arts department at Punjab University; and one at the Pakistan School of Fashion Design (PSFD).
“The Minister of Commerce, Humayoun Akhtar, suggested I open up a fashion institute in Pakistan and this is another of my long-term ventures. I would employ foreign teachers trained at ES Mode (a prestigious French fashion school).” Bhatti also remains an Honorary Investment Councilor of Pakistan in France.
Much of Bhatti’s early life has been documented in his autobiography, Paris Mein Doosra Janam (Another Life in Paris) and the docu-film La Verite Si Je Mens (The Truth If I Lie).
“My second autobiographical book will be published very soon.”
What does this second tome include? “It’s a secret. If I tell people what it’s about then no one will want to buy it,” he laughs. It may, however, include episodes of the downward spiral and final dissolution of Bhatti’s 13-year marriage, four years ago, to his US born, Native American wife, Denise, a former Chanel model.
“We’re still very good friends. She lives in the US and still works in fashion,” he explains. “But I don’t ask her too much about her new life.” Mehmood and Denise have two children; a 14-year-old son, Shiraz, and a 10-year-old daughter, Alicia. “What I liked about my marriage was that my wife was very involved in my fashion business. I don’t like the concept of Pakistani marriages where parents arrange for two people to get together to share intimacies without really getting to know each other intellectually beforehand. It’s very important for couples to work, holiday, and have fun together.”
So is a second marriage on the horizon? Perhaps this time someone from Pakistan?
He muses and then replies, “I don’t know.”
Bhatti feels there is hope in fashion for Pakistani trade. ‘This year’s international fashion trend is influenced by Pakistani style,’ says Bhatti, meaning subcontinental fashion. ‘Even Christian Dior is doing kurtis and pajamas, and hand embroidery’
Anyone significant in his life? He laughs and noticeably blushes, especially when he is reminded of tabloid reports of his involvement with Lahorite film actress Resham. “I know her very well. Perhaps she loves me, but if she does, then why doesn’t she tell me,” he banters mischievously. “She’s a good person,” he finally says, but betrays his secrecy when he adds insistently, “I don’t think Resham is in love with me.”
The Bhatti/Paris Fabricant Pret a Porter Feminin franchise now employs 600 workers and exports to 43 countries (interestingly, Bhatti also turned 43 this year).
Bhatti is aware of the fickle and meretricious nature of fashion, being an astute businessman who has in recent years also ventured into the property business in Paris as well as in stocks and shares.
Does he view himself as a retail czar or a fashion designer, having never received any formal education in fashion design himself. “I think receiving a fashion education is very important but I myself learnt on the job. I employ designers but I am very involved in the final stages, with the finishing and the fittings,” he explains. In the stringent climate of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Bhatti feels Pakistan will face almost annihilating competition with China. But he feels there is hope in fashion for Pakistani trade.
“This year’s international fashion trend is influenced by Pakistani style,” he says, meaning subcontinental fashion, but eschews to mention India out of a growing patriotism. “Even Christian Dior is doing kurtis and pajamas, and haat ka kaam (hand embroidery).”
His own ode to his Pakistani roots is evident in his Spring/Summer 2005 collection which is “very inspired by Pakistani style with canary yellows, shocking pinks and parrot greens; different types of motifs and embroidery, and variations on the kurta.” He says he sources a lot of his material, specially cotton, from Pakistan but prints in Paris and says the quota these days is beneficial for Pakistani exports.
Does he have any friends in the Pakistani fashion industry and does he feel it is possible to forge and maintain friendships in this often skewed milieu. He feigns ignorance, not even acknowledging that he has heard of them, when I mention some leading lights of the Pakistan and especially Lahore fashion scene.
He feels the fashion scene in Pakistan has boomed with many dubious types claiming to be designers, models, fashion photographers and journalists. “Some of it is good and some of it is bad. Not everyone is a real fashion designer,” he says worryingly.
This is the paradox of Bhatti. A son of the soil transposed to a different glittering universe, earnestly claiming to be patriotic by returning to his roots, but simultaneously refuting recognition of those very cords with an almost Parisian hauteur. In the past, the press has also highlighted Bhatti’s disdain for the national costume of Pakistan, the shalwar kameez. Why this aversion?
“I love the shalwar kameez,” he counters. “But women need to wear them with belts otherwise they let themselves go physically. If you’re not fit fashion is useless,” he says matter-of-factly and with the tone of the aesthete and pernickety fashion designer.
He says he does not know the names of any Pakistani fashion model and recollects a “model-cum-actress” who had come to Paris to make a drama serial and who told him “she was one of the most famous models in Pakistan. “Again, nice face but short. I actually mistook her for the make-up girl.”
He must at least have ‘fashion friends’ in Paris? He mentions Valentino and Hugo Boss as dinner mates and quite incongruously Christian Dior. Either he is understandably very tired and just threw a name offhandedly, or he meant dining with Christian Dior representatives. Unless, of course, he holds dinner seances with the ghost of Christian Dior who died in 1957, four years before Bhatti was born.
His favourite designers vacillate as frequently as the frenetically cyclical wings of fashion. “I like Prada, Gucci and Christian Dior. “In fashion you are never number one forever,” he says and cuts short a discussion about fashion conglomerates.
His own personal favourite outfit on a woman, he says, depends on the woman. “Some women look good in everything while some may wear all the designer clothes in the world and look terrible.”
He does have a penchant for a fit and beautiful woman in “beautiful flared pants, a beautiful sitara speckled blouse and a dupatta worn as a scarf or in a myriad variations.” He feels French women are the most elegant dressers. “It is very important that women are stylish. I love classy women.”
He has never ventured into menswear because he says he is a one man show, completely immersed in women’s wear so much so that he wouldn’t be able to control two empires. Nor is he interested in haute couture. “For me haute couture is dead. It’s too expensive to stage those shows although I love to attend other designers’ extravaganzas.” He says he doesn’t have a particular celebrity wish list of whom he might want to dress.
“It’s better if someone likes my clothes and comes to buy it rather than me begging them to wear them,” he says, seemingly oblivious to the annual worldwide designer/stylist/celebrity Oscar night playoffs, but adds that he frequently supplies his clothes to French TV personalities, singers and movie actresses.
A collection he has brought to Pakistan to shoot for his favourite Pakistani weekly includes an eclectic melange of East and West: a mocha and caramel chiffon off the shoulder dress with scratchy wool swirl curlicue braid motifs accentuated with bow. A Pushto-film-actress pink, shot satin tiered skirt adds humour to the collection when paired with a maroon sitara-speckled blouse. Grey denim jeans with a swirl of lace and broderie anglaise (chikan) applique motifs, dovetail easily with black racing jackets.
His message to Pakistanis “Please look after your bodies and wear good fashion.”
Bhatti says his life seems to be “une vie construe un peu de la verite” (a life based on some truth). Perhaps his chosen oeuvre, fashion, and his March 2005 fashion triumvirate will give us a real insight into the hinterlands of his experience, psyche and soul. And to his sincerity.
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