Faraz Manan at the Swarovski affair / Cinema meets fashion Taking flight from a glitzy launch in Pakistan in late 2014, local fashion’s trysts with Swarovski continued. In March 2015, the Swarovski Couture Weekend took place in Lahore, featuring designer-wear incorporated with Swarovski crystals and wrapping up the year was Pakistani fashion’s participation in the very illustrious Swarovski Sparkling Couture exhibit in Dubai. Six local designers interspersed embroideries and fabric with generous smatterings of Swarovski crystals, holding their own amongst a large international contingent.
Swarovski, of course, has long orchestrated collaborations with fashion designers across the world. 2015’s bejeweled affairs bode well for similar — perhaps even more exciting — future projects in Pakistan.
Lauding local craft
Pakistan’s rich indigenous heritage unfurled in its many variations at the ‘A Flower From Every Meadow’ at Karachi’s Mohatta Palace. Painstakingly curated by the Mohatta Palace Museum’s Director Nasreen Askari, the exhibit traversed the myriad cultures that exist within the country; from the bridal shawls of Tharparkar to the ajrak of Sindh, the woolen carpets woven high up in the mountainous regions and interpretations of local craft and trends by modern-day popular designers. It was a journey through the country that inspired awe and highlighted Pakistan’s many artisans.
In a similar vein, the Chairperson of the Pakistan Fashion Design Council (PFDC), Sehyr Saigol, announced plans to construct a Design District that would endeavour to laud local craft and collaborate it into modern fashion. The initiative, which is still a work in progress, will be bringing together designers, textile mill and local artisans. The PFDC is also working on the creation of a Textile Museum which will display heirlooms from Pakistan’s textile history as well as present-day designs.
Our unique, diverse craftsmanship, after all, is one of our foremost assets. The year 2015 highlighted the need to sustain and nurture local craft, lest it dies an untimely death at the hands of quick, cost-effective — but ultimately, generic — machine embellishments.
The LSAs return … with a bang!
The country’s oldest, arguably most credible awards returned with a massive, rejuvenating bang. Shrugging away former predilections for understated affairs, the Lux Style Awards (LSAs) pulled out all stops with a grand ceremony, complete with celebrity performances, spurts of humour, red carpet glamour and controversy.
Nomi Ansari won Achievement in Fashion Design — Bridal, Amna Ilyas and Shehzad Noor scored Best Female and Male Model respectively, Ismail Farid won for his menswear, Sadaf Kanwal was Best Emerging Talent, NFK Photography won in the Best Fashion Photographer category while Nabila, predictably, bagged the Best Hair and Make-up Artist accolade. It was designer duo Sana Safinaz’s hat-trick win, though, that raised eyebrows and sparked off conflict. Sweeping the Achievement in Pret, Luxury-pret and Lawn categories, talks were rife on should they have won, who could have won, the whys, hows and what-nots.
Masarrat Misbah Post-award debates, after all, are what make the LSAs so highly anticipated. It’s great to have the awards back, restored to their former glory with all the razzle, dazzle and magic that has always made them so special.
Make-up at the forefront
Sweeping into a market clustered with international contenders was a range of local makeup products especially devised for the Pakistani skin. Masarrat Misbah’s MM Halal Make-up range boasted healthy, skin-friendly ingredients while Nabila introduced the ‘No Make-up’ palette, miraculously creating an effortless, no make-up look with an all-in-one ingenious make-up box.
Internationally, Mehrbano Sethi’s Luscious Cosmetics made inroads when it began retailing at the gargantuan global make-up chain, Sephora. The company apparently has further expansion planned out and is also promising the introduction of interesting new ranges.
And make-up certainly went wacky at Nabila’s much-publicised Halloween party where ‘it’ girls and celebs were transformed into ghouls and hoodlums. All this, coupled with quite a few fashion weeks where styling by Nabila took center stage, made 2015 a year when make-up was in the forefront.
Cinema meets fashion
Fashion waltzed onto a brand new platform with cinema spiraling into an all-out revival. Who better to add oomph to fashion than cinema’s brand new sirens? In a varied selection of designer wear, Mahira Khan, Sohai Ali Abro, Humaima Malik, Mehwish Hayat, Armeena Rana Khan and Ayesha Omer, among others, posed and preened on the red carpet and on-screen, looking better than ever.
Muse, Feeha Jamshed, Ali Xeeshan, Sana Safinaz, Sania Maskatiya and Elan were some of the brands that one spotted at cinema premieres, soundtrack launches and glitzy after parties. If designers’ quotes are anything to go by, sales often rocketed when a popular starlet’s images filtered onto social media in their designs.
Modelling lows There really is no business like show business and the business of fashion works proportionally to it. Pakistan’s fresh new cinematic wave is very, very savvy and we’re loving it!
The entry of the online tailor
Why bother cajoling the darzi into efficiency when fabric can be stitched, ordered and delivered to your doorstep? In a heroic attempt to eliminate no-good, persistently erroneous tailors, online stitching services wound their way into cyber-space in 2015.
The concept may still be in its nascent stages in Pakistan but it has already gained popularity with multi-fashion store Labels launching the ‘Stitch My Fabric’ website and Darzi Express latching onto clientele of its own. Convenient and no-fuss, the online tailor’s entry is long overdue and certainly very welcome.
AND HERE’S WHAT WE DIDN’T LIKE
Modelling lows
The entry of the short, stumpy model was an unwelcome, unfathomable development. We know that new talent needs to be nurtured and these girls may be very enthusiastic about their fledgling professions. We can also surmise just how tempting it must be to hire these girls considering that they charge very little compared to their established counterparts. But isn’t being tall and thin a fundamental requirement of the modeling profession?
Fortunately, some of fashion’s best lot of hotsteppers continued to feature at recent fashion weeks — the very stylish Amna Babar, statuesque Fauzia Aman, Sadaf Kanwal who has made thick brows such an all-out trend, smoky-eyed Rabia Butt and Mehreen Syed who excels in carrying ornate bridal wear. The inevitable few aging models were also present, but fortunately their number is now receding with most of them having the good sense to move on other careers as they grow older.
Amongst this very graceful lot there were new girls who lacked the figures to carry off a mini or had designers in a flurry trying to tweak dress lengths to suit their shorter heights. What’s the point of a catwalk showcase if it features models that can’t carry clothes well? A definite low for 2015.
Inspiration or imitation?
Copycat designers were caught out one after the other. Relatively new designer Nida Khurram raised a brouhaha when she got much too ‘inspired’ by artists from Milan, London and NYC, transferring their art-work onto apparel. It instigated a long-winded debate on the fine line that divides inspiration and imitation with umpteen images of fashion plagiarism floating onto social media.
Fashion’s stepped up its pace, with local brands ricocheting from showcases at umpteen fashion weeks to seasonal collections to festival-oriented designs and unstitched summer lawn designs. In the rat-race to constantly deliver, many designers have begun losing out on their creativity. They meander, instead, to the runways of international fashion weeks, the bling of Bollywood across the border, the easily accessible online designs at Pinterest or even, the masterful creations of local fashion’s arguably most-copied designer, the long-suffering Bunto Kazmi.