Once Ramzan and Eid come and go, there begin two types of hysterias in Pakistani fashion: the wedding season and fashion week season. Wedding season is when wedding-goers start hopping from one event to another and fashionistas start hop-scotching and navigating through wedding ceremonies and fashion events. It is so important to be at the right place, in the social pages! Sometimes it feels like Page 3 drives social activity and not the other way around!
But after a long summer lull, end August and September is when fashionable things start ‘heating up’. Summer in Pakistan does not contribute to style and sadly, neither did the Lux Style Awards (July 2013), which looked more like a style crime scene on the live stream that I caught. Hopefully style/fashion in Fall will rise a notch or two.
Ali Xeeshan with Ali Zafar, Iraj and Fayeza at VCB in 2011.
Next week will witness the Veet Celebration of Beauty, featuring fashion capsules from several designers and, for the first time, beauty awards that will ‘crown’ winning celebrities and well known models (instead of a new pool of models) with titles such as Beautiful Skin, Photogenic, Beautiful Smile, etc. There will be no pageant, rather a jury has been active all summer, voting and marking industry beauties that deserve to win. I know because I am on the jury however I have no clue what the final results are going to be.
Details later…
HSY, who usually shows the grand finale at PFDC L’Oreal Bridal Week, also choreographs the shows at BCW.
September still appears rather quiet but October has confirmed the PFDC L’Oreal Bridal Week, scheduled to take place in Lahore between October 10 and 12th. Lineups have not been shared but I can share that Nomi Ansari and Sania Maskatiya will be showing for the first time. While Sania’s bridals will throw some new light on her pret popularity, we know that Nomi Ansari’s bridal and trousseau clothing already has established its strength and we can easily expect three things from his show: colour, impeccable attention to detail and theatrics. This will not be a show to sleep through (as we know many predictable bridal collections are capable of driving us to suicide, not just slumber) and promises some excitement.
Aamna Aqeel was the star debutant at last season’s FPW but most of the designers on the lineup were not so desirable, or designerable! Hopefully the lineup will be better edited this time.
Fashion Pakistan Week Fall Winter 2013 (FPW6) may be on schedule if they manage to put a show together by the proposed date: October 3-6. These are the dates going out in an official memo but it leaves me baffled. Many designers who should be participating know nothing of it. How are they going to get collections ready in little under two months? But then maybe planning has been underway since FPW5 and organisers/designers are spot on schedule. I need to speak to FP Chairperson Shamaeel for some clarity on this. I hear council elections are on August 28.
Nothing yet for November but there’s more. Rumour has it that Hum TV’s Bridal Couture Week will be travelling to an international locale (Dubai?) later this year, probably in December. Hum TV spokesperson Shanaz Ramzi says they will be able to share more information in a week or two.
Is there any mainstream fashion event that you know of and I may have missed?
