Designer Zainab Chottani plans a soiree every spring. It’s her way of celebrating the launch of her spring/summer luxury lawn collection. She also may host another event come winter, for her unstitched winter line. Media and key celebrities are invited to a tea, a luncheon or even a luxurious yacht party. The pictures are floated out on to social media, generating hype for the collection that proceeds to be available for retail a day or two later. It’s a marketing effort that very evidently requires a considerable budget — but then, Zainab’s unstitched collections tend to haul in big profits. The returns, perhaps, are well worth the expenditure.

This year, particularly, the designer struck lucky with her unstitched luxury lawn collection which launched in early March, at a time when the sizeable lawn-loving market across the country was avidly buying the suits of their choice. Only a week or so later, the coronavirus proceeded to wreak panic all over the country and even the most staunch lawn aficionado curtailed her budget. Luxury lawn could hardly be a priority at a time when the world mortality rate is rising and the economy is crumbling day by day. Many major lawn designers opted to delay bringing out their collections but, by this time, much of Zainab’s lawn stock had sold out already.

I meet the designer a few days following her collection’s launch — before the dreaded coronavirus pandemic had broken loose — and in between our conversation, one of her distributors in Lahore calls to provide her with statistics on the considerable sales that have been made. I have also noticed how her brand’s social media pages have been thronged by queries for the various designs. I pose the rhetorical query: the collection seems to have done well?

“Yes,” Zainab beams, “it’s been very well-received.” She adds, “The actual feedback from customers and retailers really matters to me. Every year, I observe clients’ comments and make changes in the next collection accordingly. This year, for instance, I have worked with a lot of monotones and continued with including khaddar dupattas with the suits. It’s also very important for my design signature to be decipherable in the collection.”

After seven years in the lawn business, Zainab Chottani’s brand umbrella now encompasses pret, luxury-pret, a sub-brand Tahra and wedding-wear, for which she is particularly popular

This methodology has worked well for Zainab, allowing her to run strong in a rat-race where many other contenders have fallen far behind. This is the designer’s seventh year in the lawn business — she started off with collaborations with major mills and then opted to go out on her own. And certainly, in a market plagued by similar-looking unstitched fabric, Zainab’s designs always clearly bear her signature.

Beyond lawn, her brand has also grown exponentially in other directions. The Zainab Chottani brand umbrella now stretches on to pret, luxury-pret, a sub-brand Tahra and wedding-wear, for which she is particularly popular.

“My sister, Tooba, joined the business two years ago and she has really helped boost expansion,” says Zainab.

Starting small

Family, in fact, has played a significant role in Zainab’s career. “I think I have to give credit to my father for always inspiring me,” she says. “He is a knitwear and denim exporter, and I can trace my love for textiles to my childhood, when I would visit his factory and play with the fabric and try to design it in different ways.

“He invested into my lawn and, to this date, he oversees every minute detail, from the print to the breathability to the fabric count. I think that customers may appreciate the designs but the main reason why they keep coming back is that they trust the quality that they will get.”

She continues, “My father’s experience as an exporter has also taught me the importance of standardisation. About 70 percent of our international online orders are for prêt, and this is basically because I abide by a uniform sizing chart. Customers know that the size that they order will be exactly according to their requirements.”

Interestingly, while her father may have been instrumental in the growth of her career, he has never been the prime financier behind her design house. “My father always wanted me to study business, which is what I did. Later, though, I enrolled in a diploma designing course at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, being taught by designer Yousuf Bashir Qureshi. I began to apprentice with him at the Commune Artists Colony. I learnt pattern-cutting from him and then enrolled in another advanced designing course.

“I started out small, with my own money. A single adda with a single workman sitting in my study, and helped create my first few designs. At first, I made clothes for a close friend’s wedding. Then, her extended family began to come to me, and so on.”

Most recently, her bridal-wear was worn by two very popular TV actresses, Ayeza Khan and Sajal Aly, in their dramas Meray Paas Tum Ho and Yeh Dil Mera, respectively. Did the mileage generate orders? “Ayeza’s clothes managed to bring in a lot of social media engagement but she was playing a negative character in a drama that was hugely successful. To be honest, the clothes that Sajal wore brought in the orders.”

Design meets celebrity

From the very onset, though, Zainab had a penchant for marketing. In 2009, she made her catwalk debut in a show orchestrated by Frieha Altaf. Her first show, at the Karachi-based Fashion Pakistan Week (FPW), followed soon afterwards. Later, she became a regular at Hum Network’s Bridal Couture Week (BCW), a widely successful bi-annual show that fuelled her bridal-wear business, which has now grown manifold.

“We actually got most of our initial bridal orders through BCW,” Zainab recalls. “The shows would be aired by the network at prime time during major holidays, and people from all round the world would see it. Anyone with a wedding coming up was watching that season’s BCW, and it really helped.”

Simultaneously, her designs would also be seen in umpteen local dramas. “To date, I have a rack of samples that drama directors often borrow from. In the long run, I feel that it has generated a lot of mileage for my brand.”

Most recently, her bridal-wear was worn by two very popular TV actresses, Ayeza Khan and Sajal Aly, in their dramas Meray Paas Tum Ho and Yeh Dil Mera, respectively. Did the mileage generate orders? “Ayeza’s clothes managed to bring in a lot of social media engagement but she was playing a negative character in a drama that was hugely successful. To be honest, the clothes that Sajal wore brought in the orders.”

Celebrity collaborations also figure prominently in Zainab’s career trajectory. Most recently, some of entertainment’s most popular stars took to the runway for her: Fahad Mustafa and Mawra Hocane at FPW last year and earlier, real-life celebrity couple Asim Azhar and Hania Aamir. Her unstitched lines always feature mainstream actresses and, last year, a ‘festive-wear collection’ was modeled entirely by major TV stars.

“Celebrities help the brand gain more mileage,” she says stating the obvious, “but the business can only truly grow if customers appreciate the design.”

Market talk

Business has also grown for Zainab based on her dealings with clients. One often hears stories of major designers acting unprofessionally with potential customers, judging them by the way they are dressed. On the contrary, Zainab’s design house is well-known for making clients happy. “I don’t think it’s fair to ever judge a customer based on the way they talk or are dressed. My staff is strictly trained to be respectful towards anyone who approaches us. If someone is appreciative of our designs and is willing to spend considerable sums on the clothes, then it’s a big compliment for us. Being rude just doesn’t make sense.”

Zainab has recently started wearing the hijab. Has this altered customers’ perception of her as a high-end designer? Also, does she feel that she fits into the local fashion industry, where she is probably the only mainstream designer who covers her head? “Wearing the hijab is a personal choice and one that I had been wanting to make for some time. And to be honest, over the past three years, I’ve been so busy with work that I haven’t had the time to wonder about fitting in. The fact that my business has managed to counter the fluctuating economy and continues to grow, means that customers still like my work.”

Fast-forwarding to present day’s surreal reality, where we are perpetually living in fear of an unseen virus, I talk to Zainab again just before filing my story: how are the sales these days, I ask her, how has the Covid-19 threat impacted her? “The shop is closed but, fortunately, we’re still selling well because people are indulging in online shopping. But things are bound to slow down eventually. Right now, we have stock that had been pre-produced before our factory shut down, and that’s what we have been selling. But unless things get better, we won’t have new stock soon. Our production has halted because our manufacturing units are closed. Imported fabric and trimmings are no longer coming in. Orders for bridal-wear have also been postponed although, so far, no one has cancelled their order altogether.”

Her upcoming fashion shows for the season — Zainab was planning to showcase at both the Hum Showcase and FPW SS/20 in the coming months — have now also been postponed because of the Covid-19 outbreak. “Like every business across the world, we are bound to experience an economic slowdown,” she says.

Zainab Chottani seems to be taking things in her stride for now. One hopes that for her, and for the rest of the world, the good outweighs the bad in the coming months.

Published in Dawn, ICON, March 29th, 2020