Designers, no matter how brilliant they are, cannot be council heads — council heads anywhere in the world are men and women with superior business acumen.

Take Harold Tillman, Chairman of the British Fashion Council’s Executive Board, for example. He is a man with incredible experience in the retail and entrepreneurial aspects of fashion. Fashion Design Council of India’s President Sunil Sethi has vast fashion merchandising experience. And while designers have often spearheaded the CFDA (Council of Fashion Designers of America), they have been supported by massive business service networks and committees.

The PFDC of Lahore is managed by Saad Ali, also someone who has experience in business and merchandising. Fashion designers are creative people. Their full-time job is to create collections and to expect them to deal with administrative issues, paperwork and accounts is unfair. This is precisely why FP has been struggling for five years to get their structure right. It’s time for some serious changes to be made. — A.H.I.