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Pakistani fashion retail platform LAAM is bringing a Lahore runway to a global audience with its LAAM Fashion Week (LFW) in January. Born out of tech-based innovation, the event will link its global audience with designers displaying their work through a website where pieces will be made available for sale as the audience sees them on the runway.

“Technology is at the heart of LAAM. From AI-driven personalisation to data-backed logistics, our goal is to create a seamless ecosystem where customers experience South Asian fashion like never before, and sellers get the infrastructure to grow without limits,” the company’s CEO, Arif Iqbal, said as per a press release issued on Monday.

“LAAM Fashion Week is not just a showcase of fashion, but also of how innovation can transform culture into a global movement.”

The event’s co-founder and CEO of event management company Design651, Saad Ali, said they were trying to “reframe how Pakistani fashion is experienced, positioned and sold”. He called the event a “new chapter for the industry and the global consumer”.

Designer HSY will serve as event director, while NABILA and N Gents will handle styling. Design651’s executive design director, Maheen Kardar, will be responsible for the event’s curation.

LFW is planned as a bi-annual event showcasing premium offerings from across LAAM’s portfolio of high street labels, textile houses, luxury brands and couture ateliers. The event intends to empower Pakistani designers to go global, foster interconnected creative industries, bring South Asian craft heritage to consumers around the world through digital innovation and open new revenue streams for local brands and artisans. Their ethos is “made in Pakistan, worn by the world”.

Once a staple in the yearly event calendars of Lahore and Karachi, fashion weeks — and indeed fashion shows — have become a rarity after the Covid-19 pandemic made them nearly impossible to host in 2020. The growth of e-commerce and social media in the aftermath meant there was little reason for people to gather and watch new styles put on display.

Now, over half a decade later, fashion shows appear poised for a revival of sorts. The Trade Development Association of Pakistan held fashion shows as part of their textile-centred exhibition TEXPO in 2023 and 2024. More recently, the fashion industry, students and the Depilex Smileagain Foundation got together for the Runway Spring/Summer ‘25 event in Karachi.

The idea is that merging the fashion show format with the medium challenging its relevance most — e-commerce — can lead audiences back to the runway.