Photos courtesy Rizwan Beyg
Three decades ago, Rizwan Beyg quite literally stumbled into fashion. He was an architect-turned-interior designer who had created a capsule line of apparel on a whim. It caught the eye of a well-known editor who placed it in a magazine and the rest, as they say, has been history.
But it’s quite some history! Rizwan’s accidental but fortuitous beginning led to a career that quickly spiraled. Having gained a foothold in the industry, he strode on, getting professional training in design, honing his skills, gathering pace, spreading his wings, upwards, onwards.
He has garnered plenty of accolades along the way — from dressing some very illustrious people, including the British royalty, to a perpetual deluge of rave reviews to orchestrating some of the country’s most game-changing fashion shows to the present day, when the government announced it would be awarding him with a ‘Tamgha-i-Imtiaz’.
There have also been many times during his sartorial journey when Rizwan has receded from the spotlight, spurning generic commercial shackles and eschewing the catwalk. But even during these low-profile phases, his atelier has always run strong: experimenting, reviving age-old craft, with his creations consistently being coveted by the discerning fashion enthusiast.
It’s been three decades since Rizwan Beyg began his sartorial journey and this star shines brighter than ever
This continues to be the case. I can vouch for this, and not just because I have personally been left spellbound by many of Rizwan Beyg’s couture shows. Rizwan’s popularity is actually something I witness firsthand as I wait for my interview with him to begin.
I’m meeting Rizwan Beyg to discuss his three-decades-long, prolific career. We are at his glossy new flagship store in an ‘it’ commercial area in Karachi, and I do feel that it is an ideal location for our interview. The store, in many ways, is testament to the ethos of Rizwan Beyg: it is open-spaced, well-lit, and choc-a-bloc with clothes racks distributed over two floors, stocked with designs that run the gamut from pret to luxury-wear, bridal design and anglicised couture. Framed along the stairs are some of the designer’s most memorable shoots, offering avant-garde glimpses of his designing vision. More than anything else, though, in the two hours that I’m there, the store is thronged with walk-in customers.
There are some who want to discuss their bridal outfits and, having forgotten to take an appointment, have come in hopes that they will bump into Rizwan. There are others who are regular buyers and proceed to buy off the rack, as well as place a few orders. Many make references to other friends who will be dropping by later in the evening. Rizwan knows all of them. He helps one customer make a purchase for her sister who, he suggests, will like a particular shade of turquoise.
This enthusiastic, consistent crowd of customers make my work difficult — but it also gives me an insight into Rizwan Beyg’s world. He caters to entire generations within families, women who have been coming to him for many years. And his designing clout and edgy couture shows also continue to draw in newer, younger customers. This store, a newly established online platform and plans to expand soon to Lahore are spurring on sales all the more.
He jokes with me, “This is my bread and butter but now that I have gone online and have this store, it’s become jam!”
In these economically difficult times, this is nothing short of a coup — and a long overdue one. By all means, business should have been rolling in from much earlier. Timeless, classically beautiful clothes have always been Rizwan’s hallmark. Aficionados will vouch that he has never been one to follow trends, opting to set trends of his own. Designs that are so exceptional should always be selling in droves.
And yet, hitherto, Rizwan had always had an artisanal approach towards his career. He was infamous for cocking a sardonic eyebrow at the requirements of commerce, happy catering to his regular clients. Now, with a new partner on board — his brother Rehan Beyg — business is growing the way it should be.
Diana was coming to Pakistan to attend the opening of the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital and Jemima Khan reached out to me, asking me if I would create a design for a guest of hers,” Rizwan recalls. “I asked her who the guest was and initially, she did not tell me. She just provided me with the measurements. But somehow, I suspected that it was her and I researched and found out that the Princess liked to wear ivory.”
“I strongly believe in fate, things are supposed to happen when they happen,” he says. “I’m, of course, happy with the way the business is moving, because not only is it prompting me to explore and experiment more but it enables me to make more people financially viable. My work with the craft clusters living in Pakistan’s villages has increased proportionately.”
Reviving craft
The revival of craft and the creation of sustainable income for rural artisans is something that he talks about often. He is a founder member of the government’s ‘Ek Hunar Ek Nagar’ initiative, and has also launched ‘Bunyaad’, a project dedicated to reviving traditional crafts that are on the verge of extinction. “About 98 percent of what you see in this store has been created by women living in rural regions.” He makes a wide sweeping gesture which encompasses chiffon and cotton shirts embellished by neat threadwork, as well as extremely heavy, luxurious velvets and silks, hand-worked with marori, tilla, kamdani and myriad other techniques.
Isn’t it logistically difficult and expensive to send fabric to rural villages when it could just get embellished in front of him, in Karachi? “We now have our systems in place,” he says. “It has been 12 years since I began working with indigenous craftswomen. We went through a long process of trial and error. I have trunks that are full of fabric that couldn’t quite work out the way I wanted it to. But now, the women are well-trained. And their work is in a league of its own.”
He explains, “There was a time when I, like so many others, would simply talk about making a change while sitting in the confines of my living room. Then, I was visiting a workshop in the Bahawalpur belt where an old woman asked me if I would buy a sari that she had made. It had the most beautiful hand embroidery on it, on net. She told me that it had taken her five months to embroider it, but it had been rejected because she hadn’t used a thimble and there were specks of her blood in between some of the threads. Quite literally, she had poured her sweat and blood into it. She had taken a loan of 1,200 rupees for the threads that she had used, and she needed to pay it back. She told me that I could buy it for 1,800 rupees.
“It made me cry. The skill of this woman and the level at which she was being exploited was terrible. This was when I decided that I had to make an effort to help these women, to provide a platform that would showcase just how exceptionally talented they were, and to make it possible for them to earn a proper wage.”
The ethics of fashion and the Buckingham Palace tryst.
The onset of Rizwan’s work with indigenous craftswomen was also the beginning of his long-lasting commitment to ethical fashion. For nine years running, he participated in the ethical fashion segment of Colombo Fashion Week. And then, last year, one of his designs was selected to be displayed at the Buckingham Palace, as part of the Commonwealth Exchange, a project dedicated to showcasing artisanal fashion skills and the promotion of sustainability.
“The design displayed at the exhibit was a long skirt and coat. Pakistani truck artists had drawn motifs on it which had then been embellished by craftswomen in Bahawalpur,” describes Rizwan. “It was such an honour. It was the only design that Hamish Bowles, the European Editor at Large of Vogue USA, promoted on his own social media account. And I hadn’t even contacted the organisers. They reached out to me on their own, perhaps because they were aware of my ethical work or maybe because of some of the personalities that my brand has been associated with.”
The Diana experience