Held at the British High Commission, a cool evening in Karachi hosted the ‘We Are Two’ show by Toni&Guy. CEO Saeeda Mandviwalla was joined by Gary France, International Art Director Toni&Guy and label.m, as well as Max Lampater, International Education Manager at label.m, to create 16 distinct looks featuring latest hair trends.
Attended by designers Maheen Karim, Sadaf Malaterre, Huma Adnan, Tabassum Mughal and stars Adnan Malik, Aamina Sheikh and Sanam Saeed, who came out to promote their upcoming film Cake, the lovely ambiance and limited guest list contributed to the exclusivity of the night, where we saw looks that might not have been everyone’s cup of tea but worked up some serious style. As revealed, the aim was to bring international trends to Karachi so thankfully your usual blow-dries and fancy up-dos were not on the agenda! Fun fashion colours, futuristic vibes, blunt fringes and messy perms however, definitely were.
The men’s segment featured a new take on the blunt fringe
The looks, divided into four various segments, were styled by Saeeda, Gary and Max, who took a moment to explain the concept as well as the products that went into creating it, giving an elaborate idea on the process behind each. While most of the models were new faces, Amna Ilyas and Fayezah Ansari came out as showstoppers and owned the runway.
While it may be difficult to relate the edgy hair trends to our eastern culture, it is important to keep in mind that the trends were meant to be global. Originating from London, where street-style and club culture is very much the hub of fashion, the looks were anything but ordinary. A particularly edgy take on the fishtail braid and Aamna Ilyas’ wild curls are looks we’d love to see more often.
Saeeda Mandviwalla and Gary France presented the ‘Futurewise’ segment
That said we do wish the show had featured some local fashion to help the audience envision how the edgy hairstyles would look with ethnic clothing. The last segment for instance, as Saeeda Mandviwalla pointed out, featured messy hairstyles and braids that can be adapted for the local festive season and could have been styled with ethnic and western fused garments, giving a feel of what they would look like when sported in Pakistan.
While local fashion continues to strive to do better with various fashion weeks, hair and makeup needs to be given the same importance. These seasonal solo shows, that too ones that are bringing international collaborations to Pakistan, might just be the beginning of many more to come; or so we hope.
Fayezah Ansari tapped into her wild side but hey, we’ve seen her wilder!
