KARACHI: Fashion Pakistan Week Winter/Festive ’19 got under way at a local hotel on Wednesday with a line-up of 20 fashion labels, as well as both emerging and established designers, showing their wares over three days.

The day one line-up included AlKaram Studio, Boheme by Kanwal, Gogi by Hassan Riaz, Yasmin Zaman and Ayesha Farook Hashwani (AFH). Day two was reserved for Italian designer Stella Jean Roma whose focus was on embroideries and crafts from the Chitral and Hunza region, Humayun Alamgir, The Pink Tree Company, Zuria Dor, Zelburry, Splash and Maheen Khan. Day three of FPW will showcase designs by Zainab Chottani, Huma Adnan, Nauman Arfeen, Saba Asad, Shiza Hasan, Sadaf Fawad Khan, Ayesha Ibrahim and Deepak Perwani.

Day one opened with AlKaram Studio’s highly sartorial collection ‘La Vie en Rose’ (Life in Pink) comprising outfits for men, women and children, and which melded with Pink Ribbon Pakistan’s Pinktober campaign to raise awareness about breast cancer.

‘La Vie en Rose’ showed cocktail and evening wear with oversized pleated ruffles, frills, florets in fine fabrics such as voiles and nets with voluminous skirts, embellished jackets, and Eastern wear in velvets and embroidered cloth in rich, deep bloom tones with hints of pinks, blushes and corals. Muneeb Butt, Ayeza Khan, child star Sami Khan among others walked as showstoppers in the segment.

Boheme by Kanwal in ‘Gul-i-Nar’ showed the traditional and popular gajj Sindhi embroidery-inspired collection with colourful fine silk tread embroidery, textures, techniques such as bandhani for dupattas and ganga jamna badla work and appliqué in strictly traditional and Eastern silhouettes, and in tones of red and maroon. The collection was classical and commercially friendly, and employed the liberal use of velvets. Saboor Aly walked for the designer.

Gogi by Hassan Riaz with ‘Lost In My French Garden’ attempted to pay tribute to the fine art form of French gardens and this resulted in psychedelic and retro looks, flashing costumes in neons and solid colours. His take on French couture was wildly over-the-top and hardly impressed any among the front-row crowd, in fact ruffling quite a few feathers by his sartorial choices which mostly bordered on the downright gaudy. Nimra Khan was the choice of showstopper for the designer.

Yasmin Zaman’s Albanian-inspired kilts and vests’ collection ‘Tirana’ featured with gold accents remained monotonous with hardly any innovation in embellishment, fabric or cuts that featured loose jackets and flat braid work. Sarwat Gillani walked for the designer in this segment in a midriff-exposing olive green velvet number with a fitted, daring slit skirt.

Ayesha Farook with ‘Mahnoor’ (Light of the Moon) showed a palette of silver gray to charcoal with a few hints of mustard. The silhouettes remained classy with bejewelled kaftans, jumpsuits, capes and jackets paired with harem pants, all topped off with chandelier-bling embellishment patterns to spruce up the wedding-wear look. Overall the collection remained a triumph. Model Fauzia Aman in a yellowish-orange silk kaftan rounded off the dramatic collection.

The show direction and choreography of FPW W/F ’19 is by Nubain Ali with hair and make-up by Nabila’s N-Pro and N-Gents.

Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2019