“You’ve GOT to come!” cried a friend tearily (I think she was teary — it was on Whatsapp and I got a crying emoji). “I’m business-y not modell-y, the clothes won’t fit, I could FALL, they’ll make me walk to Right Said Fred, uhhhhhh hold on, I think I’m going to throw up…”

This is uncharted territory for me, so obviously I wasn’t going to pass up a free ticket to the Telenor Fashion Week 2015. Obediently, I strapped on my heels and hopped to the PC with an entourage.

“We need to save 10 seats,” said a worried pal, “and they haven’t even opened the area yet.” Tiny beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.

An insistent crowd was forming at the entrance to the runway. We needed to be brazen without being clubbed to death by those hard Lucite clutch bags.

Dropping our complimentary kiwi-blueberry-sugarwater drinks we did the only logical thing – we pretended not to hear the ushers, and charged through the curtains, sprawling out on an entire row of seats that should not have been ours in a just world. Sorry disgruntled lady whose seats we stole, but where were you?

Also read: Fashion Pakistan Week Day 3: Iman Ahmed, Inaaya and YBQ wow the crowd

Yes. We sucked, but we had bagged prime real estate and I was jazzed. Fashionnnn! Fantasy! Mid-2000’s house music! Hurry up and begin Telenor Fashion Week day 3!

And it did. I’ll drop the snark because it made me genuinely very happy. Special mention to the dapper, suited gentleman at lights and sound, cueing the models.

Here, I discovered that a suited man shaking to deep house, wearing sunglasses at night is a great thing. I salute you, Mr. Orchestrator, thank you for making me dance in my (illegal) chair.

Yes, there were many things that I didn’t understand (cough footstool covered with black gauze on model’s head), but the clothes were pretty. The models were sort-of smiling and best of all, nobody there looked like they were taking any of it too seriously.

The colour palettes ranged from an all-white Body Focus Museum opener, to Wardah Saleem’s surprising peach and turquoise creations, Somal Halepoto’s youthful sherbert colours, Sania Maskatiya’s bold prints and jewel tones to Yousuf Bashir Qureshi’s dramatic drapey reds.

The feel was summery and easy and nothing very structured comes to mind, besides HSY’s suit collection, which also had a lightness to its textures and prints.

I mentioned earlier that the designers seemed to be having fun with their clothes. As a tribute to Sufi saint Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, Qureshi screened a gritty, clip-noir and sent models down the runway to hypnotic sounds, in chunky black turbans and fierce scarlet dresses. It was equal parts fashion show and fun spectacle. Two thumbs up.

Inaaya were also notable in their “fashion with a message” ethos. To cap off the inventive clothes, Naushaba Brohi got Educator and Supergirl Mashall Chaudhri (my aforementioned teary friend) to close the show on a positive note. “I Teach, Therefore I Can,” said Mashall’s placard.

The cheerful cross-breed of ethical fashion, education and girlpower was the type of punctuation that would get me out at fashion events more often. That, and Waseem Akram walking for Levis — a class act and a highlight for a lot of us in the audience.

I’m not a fashion journalist so fashion people, don’t hate me for not knowing more about the clothes. Based on Day 3 of Telenor Fashion Week, I feel a grounded yet joyful flavour in the country’s clothing industry. I’m into this vibe.

There is something very uplifting about watching designers translate our uniquely Pakistani sensibilities and our heritage crafts into something beautiful and approachable. Those are odd adjectives to use together, but somehow they fit last night’s show.

Telenor, don’t forget to send me a ticket for next year.

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—Photographs by Tapu Javeri.