Message in the ‘Sunsilk Fashion Edition’ bottle!

Sunsilk, a name that has been associated with the PFDC Sunsilk Fashion Week since day one as title sponsor, always aims to add an extra little oomph to the event. This year it continued its tradition of unveiling four Fashion Edition shampoo bottles (designed by four different designers who are showing at fashion week) but it added much more pizzazz to the show than usual.

Here’s how:

Russian drape dancer, Vlada, wowed the audience with her moves.

Held this weekend at the Alliance Francais in Karachi, the Sunsilk Fashion Edition ‘reveal’ flew in key media for a bit of pre-fashion week banter that is always integral to get the show on the road. We caught up with Umair Tabani, awed over Shamoon Sultan’s new Khaadi megastore (and the fact that he was too busy to come) and wondered what Deepak was doing in Goa. Khaadi, Deepak Perwani, Nomi Ansari and Sana Safinaz have designed the four Fashion Edition bottles this year, in case you’re wondering. The event included an amazing performance by a Russian drape dancer and then a catwalk of four trendy styles that also defined hair for Spring/Summer 2016. Executed to perfection by Nabila, the four models were clad in white designs by Zaheer Abbas. And I have to say that these four white outfits looked better than the outfits designed specially for the bottles.

Nabila with her troupe of models, showcasing hair that reflects that four Sunsilk variants.

This is my peeve: bright and beautiful the bottles were but who – if shown to anyone in the world – could say these bottles were from Pakistan? There should have been some identity or ethos that connected them to being Pakistani. That said, we were informed that each designer had made four outfits; one was shown and the rest would be revealed at fashion week. I do hope that at least one look from each designer’s capsule says made in Pakistan.

For me, the highlight of the evening was Nabila’s flawless styling and later, the bottles we were given as souvenirs. I was going to stash mine away until I realized that they had been customized. How cool! Now I have four #sunsilkfashionedition bottles with my face on them. That does make them a collector’s item, I have to say…for me at least!

On a more serious note, it is supporting activities like this that add to the entire fashion week experience. And it also takes the fashion week experience to the masses because when these bottles are retailed (in April), women all over Pakistan are bound to feel that they are part of the process.