Fashion Pakistan elects a new board

With three years up for Fashion Pakistan’s first elected board completing term, elections were held last month and finally a newly elected board appears to have been put in place. The transition wasn’t exactly smooth, with rumours of lawsuits, disagreements and rivalries washing in every now and then, but it appears that the voting has been conducted and the new board has been sworn in.

Though nothing has been made official, news doing the rounds are that Shamaeel replaces Maheen Khan as Chairperson and Amir Adnan replaces Tammy Haq as CEO. Tammy and Rizwan Beyg, who were at the helm of organizing FP’s two fashion weeks, are now nowhere in the picture. Rizwan Beyg apparently did not even contest. Other than Shamaeel and Amir Adnan, the seven member board comprises of Safinaz, Deepak Perwani, Maheen Khan, Honey Waqar and Sabeen (of Ather-Hafeez-Sabeen fame). Either Honey or Sabeen will be chairing the Lahore division.

I must say that this board looks quite promising as each and every member is active and brings an organized agenda to the table. One expects a lot from it but what they manage to achieve and deliver to the entire body of Fashion Pakistan council is entirely another story. If you take the last year out of the former council’s tenure (that included two fashion weeks and the opening of Fashion Pakistan Lounge in Lahore) they can’t really be credited for much.

It’ll be interesting to see the road map this council has.

Will it push for legitimizing fashion trade, convincing all couturier members to register for taxes?

Will it boost young designers and help them find footing in the industry?

Will it manage to strike deals with textile giants and push fashion collaborations on a bigger scale?

Will it manage to get something concrete out of the MOU it signed with the Fashion Design Council of India two years ago?

Will it finally manage to convince the Ministry of Commerce to open a subsidiary of the PSFD in Karachi?

And will it manage to put egos aside and collaborate with its counterpart – Pakistan Fashion Design Council – for a united fashion week if nothing else?

There’s a lot that can be done and let’s just hope one doesn’t witness another group of self-motivated people, geared to do nothing but pushing their own personal agendas.

No formal announcements of any sort have been made yet and one awaits the ‘oath-taking’ which will hopefully come in the form of a press conference.