Dawn Images

High-street brand Sapphire has lately been in the news – but hardly for the right reasons.

The three-year-old brand recently parted ways with its Creative Director, designer Khadijah Shah, creating a small furore within fashion circles.

Khadijah, after all, had helmed Sapphire from its very onset, promoting it extensively, lending her distinctive aesthetic to the designs and veritably becoming the face of the brand.

Additionally, she is a designer who has always wielded considerable clout in local fashion, winning rave reviews for her label Elan as well as for Sapphire within the high-street.

Khadijah’s departure had the industry wondering about Sapphire’s future. Would the brand develop an all-new signature? Who would step into Khadijah’s shoes? And will the brand, having gained considerable popularity in a very short time, continue to go strong and cement its place in the market?

Read more: What's next for Khadijah Shah after her split with Sapphire?

And while Khadijah quickly returned to the limelight with an exhibit for Elan, the team at Sapphire had hitherto remained quiet, apparently restructuring and aligning new objectives.

In an exclusive interview with Images, Dawn, Sapphire’s CEO Nabeel Abdullah talks about the brand’s future as it moves away from Elan-esque territories and sets its sights on a mass cash prize…

Images: Fashion insiders have openly conjectured if Sapphire will be able to retain its popularity in the market without Khadijah Shah's indelible signature. Such talk must have unnerved you during a time when your organisation was probably in a panic. Given Khadijah’s popularity in the fashion industry, do you regret having had entered the partnership in the first place?

Nabeel Abdullah: I can’t deny that it was a time when we were panicking a bit. But these things are part of running a business and we’re looking forward to steering Sapphire towards new directions.

I don’t regret working with Khadijah at all. She’s a great designer and the brand achieved many milestones with her. I have enjoyed working with her.

Images: And yet, you chose to part ways with her after a mere three years…

Nabeel: There are changes that are taking place in the business and it’s only natural. Every company evolves over time.

For instance, in the textile business, the Sapphire mill’s forte was something else three years ago while we have expanded to more market avenues now.

Similarly, we started off in the high street with a few stores in niche locations. Now, we have expanded to 15 stores as well as an online store and we are catering to a very diverse clientele.

I want there to be something for everyone who visits Sapphire; from the woman who frequents Dolmen City Mall in Clifton, Karachi to another, who lives in Hyderabad. We will be making changes to our aesthetic in order to cater to our growing customer base.

Our prices will also continue to be competitive. In our upcoming lines, we are planning to start off prices at Rs600 and build them up to around Rs9000.

Images: Does this mean that Sapphire had so far only been appealing to a certain kind of clientele?

Nabeel: Sometimes, yes. I had a study done by McKinsey some time ago and I was told that there are two kinds of models in this business; a designer-driven one and a merchant-driven one. Internationally, labels like Gucci, Chanel and Dior are designer-driven where their head designers represent the brand. On the other hand, Zara, H&M and Uniqlo are merchant-driven where the brand is center stage while design teams may change. It is the latter model that we want to follow now.

"I want there to be something for everyone who visits Sapphire; from the woman who frequents Dolmen City Mall in Clifton, Karachi to another, who lives in Hyderabad."

We want to be a completely mass-centric brand which means that while certain fashion elements may be retained within the designs, we will also be making sure that we balance wearability with trendsetting design, attracting in the conventional customers who dominate the market.

Images: And what kind of designs appeal to conventional customers?

Nabeel: In our home line, for example, we have started off with a lot of white cotton sheets but the typical Pakistani customer prefers more colourful options. So while our all-white bedsheets will continue to be in stores, we will also make sure that we have other designs to appeal to other customers.

Sapphire has commissioned four designer brands to create collections till summer next year

Lately, I feel that the high street has gotten very monotonous and we will be trying to bring in new things constantly, as we had before. When Khadijah brought in digitally printed shirts, every brand followed suit to the point that they have now become generic. We want to continue with such innovations.

Images: Will you be hiring another Creative Director to steer the brand towards these mass-centric territories?

Nabeel: We are currently in the process of building our own in-house design team and during this phase, we have commissioned four designer brands to temporarily create collections for us probably up till summer next year.

Eventually, though, all designing and manufacturing will be taking place in-house and we will probably hire one or more Creative Consultants to oversee designs and add aspirational value to Sapphire.

Images: How are these Creative Consultants going to be different from a Creative Director?

Nabeel: A Creative Director has complete creative freedom over the various product lines whereas the Creative Consultants will be working in coordination with us so that we have inevitable control over what goes into the stores.

Images: Will these Creative Consultants be touted as the brand’s faces just the way Khadijah used to represent Sapphire?

Nabeel: They will be given due importance, of course, but Sapphire needs to be an entity all on its own. Changes happen in businesses and it’s important that the brand continues to stay alive despite them. Right now, we are trying to come up with a business model that is unique to us; a dream team with consultants providing guidance and an innovative, perceptive in-house designing faction.

We have new stores opening up soon over the next six to nine months and there are some new product lines that are in the pipeline. We are even in the process of handpicking a new marketing team. There’s a lot of restructuring that is happening but we are in this business to succeed and that’s what we are aiming for.