For the love of fashion
Within the varnished interiors of her stores, Sonya Battla treads her own path. The designer has two outlets — the happening E-Street and the high-street Kaju in Dolmen City Mall — where bling comes in tasteful, subdued spurts, neat block-prints are merged with hand-embroidered borders, the chikankari is remarkably dainty and script is etched onto fine cotton-nets and silks.
It is also here that Manora’s skyline is sketched out into a haze of colours and transferred onto elegant, slinky silhouettes. And where the Grand Trunk Road winds down apparel, sifting through historic navigational routes; traversing the colours of Varanasi, Kolkata and Kabul. Triangular cutouts may be intricately layered together to form multi-tiered dresses, and malmal fabric may be torn and then glued together to depict how the soul tarnishes and decays while on earth.
Symbolic and individualistic, it is design that immediately takes you back to days of yore, when fashion was not just the means to an end, but the means itself. But does this precarious marriage of art with fashion bring in the kind of business that more market-friendly designers are hauling in?
With fashion blindly spiralling towards commercialism, Sonya Battla stands out as a rare breed
“Probably not,” admits Sonya. “But I am satisfied with the way I am. I don’t believe in churning out design or changing my signature in order to become a high-street sensation. Fashion, for me, needs to be an extension of my imagination. It needs to be crafted in order to define something new. I could never sacrifice my integrity in the name of commercialism.”
‘My ethics are not valued here’
It is this sincerity to her craft that defines Sonya as a designer. Even as fashion begins to get clustered by lackluster social media sensations and money-minting copycats run rampant, she resiliently stays true to her love for design. Her signature is instantly recognisable while other established ateliers flit from one style to the other, losing out on their identity in the race to gain sales.
“I have never copied anyone’s work in my life,” she admits. “In fact, sample-making constitutes a huge cost within my business — to take the fabric and work it with intricate embellishments and techniques in order to understand what will work. I know of designers who simply go to Italy, get hold of designer wear that they like and when they come back home, these become the samples that their craftsmen replicate.
“Still, I don’t think my particular ethics are valued here. Everyone’s in a rush to commend mediocrity, support their friends or give rave reviews in exchange for money. There are very few people who appreciate the thought and effort that goes into creating bona fide design. For my capsule line Manora, for instance, I went to KPT and Kemari to see the shoreline again and again. I reflected upon the colours of my surroundings, how foul the water was and how it could be so much more beautiful, were we to take care of it. I don’t know how many people truly understood this.”
Fashion week experiences
Nevertheless, Sonya’s collections are always well-received, whether for their sheer artistry or the understated elegance that they exude. A case in point is her Identity, showcased at Fashion Pakistan Week (FPW) earlier this year. Created in collaboration with textile and visual students from Karachi University, it was very experimental, well-structured and laden with meaning. An outfit fashioned from bubble wrap and wire, for instance, depicted Sonya’s sense of desolation at the carnage dealt by the bomb blast in Lahore’s Gulshan-i-Iqbal park, that had taken place recently at the time. “I saw an image on the news which showed pieces of plastic strewn amongst the remains. They were probably broken pieces of toys that children must have been playing with at the time. I just put together different materials to construct an outfit that paid tribute to that loss.”
While many may not have been able to understand the collection’s symbolism, it was appreciated for its craftsmanship if not its immediate wearability. “There are pieces in the collection that can be worn, as is,” argues Sonya. “The collection generated a widespread response internationally. Clients come in and we alter the designs according to their requirements.”
In contrast, Sonya’s recent showcase at Bridal Couture Week (BCW) was more market-friendly, presenting well-defined silhouettes, layering and sophisticated embellishment. “The two collections were very different,” she explains. “The FPW line was more creative and wilder, staying true to my spirit. The BCW collection, meanwhile, stayed true to the skill-set of my craftsmen. I also used the platform to highlight the pain experienced by burn victims. Dr Jawad Khan, who was part of Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s documentary Saving Face, and Massarrat Misbah of the Depilex SmileAgain foundation, walked the catwalk as my showstoppers. BCW is a widely-popular platform and I wanted people to see my work as well as make them think about a cause that matters.”