Fashion Week in Karachi is over and it has been an exhausting run of 53 shows. I have given no details because honestly, I haven’t had the energy but in a very small nutshell, I would like to draw a conclusion.
Repeating what I said in my article and previously on my blog, I’ll reiterate that Karachi does have an understanding of design and fashion that no other city of Pakistan has. Experienced designers like Sana Safinaz, Shamaeel, Maheen Khan, Deepak Perwani, Faiza Samee out of a much more vast pool of those who couldn’t show (like Sonya Battla, Rizwan Beyg, Body Focus – who showed in Lahore this time – Nomi Ansari) have given the city a concrete foundation. The emerging talent also has moments of outstanding vision that is unparalleled. And there are more than a dozen designers in between who are getting there fast. On those grounds, PFW2 rocked. I admit there were some very painful projections of awful fashion but I have been reassured by senior members that they will be filtered out now. Sounds good.
I don’t have to eat my words.
As an event PFW2 needs to up the game. The venue has to be changed and the production overall has to be upped to the standard that these designers deserve. Otherwise they will benefit more from showing at the PFDC Sunsilk Fashion Week and at the end of the day any fashion week needs to make business sense more than anything else. That said, backstage management – thanks to Rizwan Beyg – has been clockwork smooth many insiders have confirmed. That’s a far cry from Lahore, where some models confided that their finale dresses would mysteriously disappear and then comeback after the show.
So essentially Karachi has all the right cards. Just needs to learn how to play them.
