FPW Day1: Shehla Chatoor and Sania Maskatiya win big, other collections fall short
Fashion Pakistan Week Winter Fiesta 2015 took flight with high hopes. The designer lineup looked promising, fashion week brunch and lunch invitations helped build hype and social media buzzed with exuberant sneak peeks and Snapchat videos.
Karachi was already in full swing with the onset of winter party festivities, bolstered by the promise of high fashion glamour at the supposed ‘it’ event of the season.
These hopes plummeted dismally with the first day of FPW 2015.
A designer line-up that seemed stellar on paper veered often towards the disappointing, the mundane and occasionally, the downright ghastly. It seemed implausible that some of these collections had been edited at all by the Fashion Pakistan Council before being allowed out on the runway.
Much better than the fashion was the celebrity quotient on the catwalk: Ayesha Omar for Shehla Chatoor, Imran Abbas and Syra Shehroz for Sania Maskatiya, Sarwat Gillani for Gulabo and Maria Wasti and Zhalay Sarhadi for Tena Durrani.
The front row, unfortunately, was not as star-studded. With the exception of the political celeb factor provided by the Bhutto-Zardari siblings, the front rows seated a milieu of journalists, bloggers and sponsors’ friends. Where were the rock-stars and the movie stars and starlets that make fashion week fun?
It’s a good thing social media has developed a predilection for photographing themselves. FPW’s Instagram feed is currently littered with some very well-heeled journalists and bloggers on the red carpet. In the absence of celebrities, just click at yourself!
Moving back to the catwalk, here’s the lowdown on Day One
Shehla Chatoor
Celebrating her two-decade long career, Shehla Chatoor put her best foot forward with ‘All the Raj’, a bridal line inspired by pre-partition British rule and ranging from classic silhouettes to the slinky and the cutting-edge. The designer had hitherto refrained from showcasing her bridals in order to retain exclusivity and it is good to see her step into the limelight with what is, quite evidently, her forte.