Karachi is definitely going through a boom culturally. Recent high-flying events brought the world to our city, but plenty of our local products are becoming world class and ideal for stores anywhere in the world.
Fashion shows:
Possibly the highlight of the much written about Sindh Festival was the Fashion Festival. This began with the hugely successful “Fashion Supports Conservation” fundraiser for Moenjodaro held at Mohatta Palace Museum organized by Shehrbano Taseer and Reema Qureshi, with a special guest appearance by Bakhtawar Bhutto who patiently posed with attendees. Hundreds of businesses and SMEs contributed by donating items for sale in support of our heritage and this event truly engaged Karachiites in a larger movement.
Fashion Festival continued with special fashion shows held at the Hindu Gymkhana. Day One featured a designer line-up included Bunto Kazmi, Amir Adnan, FnkAsia, Nauman Afreen, Umar Sayeed and Zaheer Abbas who created a must-have Ajrakistan collection. Bunto’s exquisite shawls were artfully displayed over the monochrome trendily cut black outfits by Mohsin Sayeed & Pink Tree. Amir Adnan chose a full showstopper line-up including Amin Gulgee, Emu, Roger Bayat and Tapu Javeri, ending with the dashing Shehryar Taseer, who then took the mike to officially welcome guests and along with Bakhtawar Bhutto auctioned some items for fundraising. One of the most memorable parts was when Shehryar Taseer – who organized the event with Ayesha Tammy Haq – officially welcomed guests and stated, “We first conceived the idea of this Sindh Festival 90 days ago and organized it in just 60 days. We have an 8000 year old heritage and a culture as incredible as Egypt. Even Rome we give a great run to.” It is so easy for us to forget our heritage and it was really meaningful to have our legacy as Pakistanis highlighted in this way.
[quote]Shehru's face was all over the model's bodies[/quote]
FnkAsia’s collection was young and funky, as was to be expected, and Umar Sayeed played it safe with traditional bridals. It was Zaheer Abbas who stole the show, however, with a lust-worthy collection of well fitted, multi-style ajrak designs including matching hats! Arjak is definitely back in trend fashionistas, as evidenced by the Forever 21 brouhaha around our parts. In case you haven’t heard, the western fashion outlet Forever 21 is selling an ajrak print kimono that is unfortunately not credited as being a Sindhi design. A similar thing happened recently with Paul Smith’s ‘Robert’ sandal, essentially a Peshawari chappal with pink trim, whose design ‘inspiration’ Smith did not acknowledge till an outrage on twitter. Will Forever 21 do the right thing and follow suit?
Complementing the performances was a special Fashion Museum display, featuring live models, put together by Ehtesham Ansari with sets by Ahmed Jung of Reactivate and hair and make-up by Angie Marshall. The display featured fashion by Shamaeel Ansari, Sania Maskatiya, Nida Azwer, Ismail Fareed, Fnk Asia, Mahin Hussain, Sofia Naveed Lari, Shamsha Hashwani. Aamina Mansoor, Adnan Pardesi, Wardha Saleem, Unbeatable, Pink Tree, Amir Adnan, EB, Shahnamay, Arsalan Iqbal, as well as a collection of fashion photographs. The best part of this display was that guests could go and pose with the collections, similar to taking a picture with a Madame Tussauds’ wax sculpture.
Unfortunately, Day Two was postponed for 40 days out of respect to the families of the policemen who died in a targeted bombing. This incident drove home that underneath all the celebrations and fun and games, there was still a bloody battle going on.
The Fashion Festival was barely over when Pakistan Fashion Week began, starting with a lunch hosted by Lala Textiles and then three days of pure catwalk. One memorable moment was Tapulicious by Tapu Javeri capsule show which featured designs by HSY that were essentially a print of Hasan Shehryar Yasin’s face and the eyes of Aminah Haq and Vaneeza Ahmad. Shehru’s face was everywhere, literally all over the models’ bodies with his signature boldness! Backstage, in an exclusive interview with TFT, HSY said simply, “”I put myself out there.”
Trendy bags at the SAARC melee
Zehra Kachelo’s statement necklaces
SAARC melee:
Despite the abundance of fashion weeks, sometimes the best place to hunt for fashion finds is far from the catwalk. The highly successful annual SAARC melee is once such place that really brings shoppers out in droves. Some great items to note include Munawara Sultana of Pukhraj & MS Collection’s silk scarves from Nawabshah, Zehra Kachelo’s statement necklaces, Shahida Masood’s bags, delicate floral centerpieces by “Flower house of Shamim Akhter”, some lovely paper products by Farwah Tapal and some very trendy bags from the up and coming Madiha Raza. These pieces are not yet on catwalks but they definitely were selling like hotcakes at this gala and could easily be in stores in London, New York and Paris, as Karachi.
Saad Haroon’s comedy tour:
Saad Haroon brought some much need relief and laughter to the city with his Kata-Kat comedy tour. Having been living in New York City the past four years, the comedian enjoyed joking about his home turf and especially his home city of Karachi, with a political backdrop to his humour. He did a very special Valentine’s Day performance in which he addressed the rarely discussed issue of dating in Karachi. He compared it to the spy games and espionage of Hollywood films.
LADIESFUND speed networking:
TUD in Adnan Pardesy
In order to facilitate meeting new people, LADIESFUND® co-hosted a speed networking event with the British Deputy High Commission in Karachi. Adnan Pardesy who has a flair for working women’s fashion, designed a special outfit for me with a tapered overcoat, and a pink textured overcoat for Acting British Deputy High Commissioner Gill Aitkinson. Hemlines were raised while overcoats remained uber trendy as they give a polished, professional look as well as a more formal one, ideally for tough negotiations or special occasions.
A play on speed dating, this event facilitated meeting new people for career advancement purposes and was Pakistan’s first such initiative. Over 150 women professionals and entrepreneurs came out and were trained according to Harvard Guidelines for speed networking in how best to meet and interact with strangers. It was particularly interesting as in our culture women are generally discouraged from speaking first when they enter a room full of strangers and the protocol for this event is that women were paired with another women for five minutes, had to speak to them according to the topics given in advance, and then rotated to speak to the next stranger for five minutes and so forth. It was a lot of fun, but most women were reluctant initially to talk with more depth than the polite hi and hellos until the coaching began. Even then, we had to keep reminding ourselves that our voice should be heard.
