What to expect from Pakistani fashion and style in 2018
There’s going to be lots of fashion in 2018 …. loads of it … too much of it, even.
The events are going to be filing in one after the other, the soirees will go on endlessly and far too many catwalks will be laid out than you ever wished for. There will be exciting bits, of course, but we have a sense of foreboding that the year to come may careen quickly into fashion overkill.
If it was great, original fashion we’d still be cheering but lately we’ve seen far too much mediocrity and it has managed to erode away all our optimism.
Peering into the future, here’s what you can look forward to in fashion in the year to come … and what you may not look forward to…
Everyone’s going solo!
Faraz Manan started off the whole solo show trend when he broke off from the fashion week omnibus in 2014 and apparently, now the entire local fashion fraternity thinks that it’s a fabulous idea.
Elan is now synonymous with grand, floral-infested displays and in 2018, we’ll be seeing many more jump onto the bandwagon. There’s HSY planning to bring his quintessential love for luxury with a show in Karachi; Shehla Chatoor spinning out luxe in an individual outing; Ali Xeeshan who has fantastical plans in motion for later in the year and Deepak Perwani planning to go his own way. Faraz Manan and Elan will also be showcasing couture and we’re sure that many others are bound to join the fray.
Read on: Did Depilex really need a solo hair and makeup show?
But does that mean that the fashion is going to be brilliant each and every time? Not likely. Add to this two fashion weeks by the Pakistan Fashion Design Council, two by Fashion Pakistan Week, two Bridal Couture Weeks, one Hum Showcase and even TDAP possibly joining the crowd and the fashion calendar’s already making us dizzy.
Can we focus on quality fashion rather than this mind-numbing penchant for quantity?
A year for newbies?
Here’s another perturbing notion: with so many of fashion’s most famous names flying solo, we wonder if this year’s fashion weeks will be teeming with new names. We do know that Lahore’s Hussain Rehar will be making his fashion week debut at the PFDC Sunsilk Fashion Week and having caught glimpses of his designs, the designer has definite promise. But some downright atrocious ‘Rising Talent’ shows in the past have left us jaded and we wonder if any of the other newcomers will deliver on design.
We’re going to be supportive here and cheer the newbies on – local fashion is in dire need of fresh, creative blood. And we have our fingers crossed that the fashion will impress.
Elan will come to Karachi
Possibly one of the most anticipated shop openings of the year will be that of Elan in Karachi. We can’t reveal too much about the new store right now but we do know that it’s a beautiful classic location where Khadijah Shah’s couture will be sharing space with jewelry by Sherezad Rahimtoola and artistic furniture by Yousuf Shahbaz.
Elan reaching out to Karachi makes sense, of course. The brand has long had a steady clientele within the city and it was about time that it extended herself beyond regular trunk shows to a proper shop in order to facilitate regular business.
Read on: What's next for Khadijah Shah after her split with Sapphire?
The Elan-Sherezad Rahimtoola combo is also bound to be a great one, given how well the jewelry tends to look with Elan bridal wear on catwalks.
Faraz Manan spins out more Bollywood magic
We’ve always loved Faraz Manan’s trysts with Bollywood A-listers. In recent times, the designer has dressed Indian actresses Jacqueline Fernandez, Sri Devi and of course, long-time friends Kareena and Karisma Kapoor.
He’s also the only local designer to have a retail store in Dubai, allowing him to reach out increasingly to a high-end clientele traversing the Middle East and India.
In 2018, the designer’s going to take his brand a step further with his designs featured at major Bollywood events. There’s a chance that one of India’s most famous heroines will be wearing his design at the prestigious Filmfare awards. That’s a big first for a local designer and we’ll be cheering all the way … and of course, manically posting the images on social media!
Sapphire gets a makeover
Sapphire’s steamrolled its way to high-street success within three short years but the brand made noise for all the wrong reasons when it broke off ties with designer Khadijah Shah, who had helmed it from the onset.
We wondered how Sapphire would manage churning out regular stock without Khadijah’s designing acumen and which designer would be filling in her considerably big shoes. It turns out that the brand is gearing for a makeover in 2018 with Mahgul Rashid of Mahgul as its new Creative Head. Mahgul is now heading an in-house design team and according to Sapphire’s CEO Nabeel Abdullah, she is overseeing the different aspects of the brand including patterns, marketing and shop interiors.
Will Mahgul, hitherto better known for her couture, be able to make an impact in Sapphire’s prêt friendly waters? And will Sapphire develop a new distinctive signature of its own instead of trundling towards a design mish-mash like so many other brands? We’ll know in a few months!
Nabila swoops into Bloomingdale’s!
Nabila’s all-in-one face palette ‘Zero Makeup’ has made major headway in the local market, proving to be a hit with women on the go who enjoy natural-looking makeup. The palette was in the news this year when the stylist relaunched it in shiny new packaging and we also know that Nabila had been spending considerable time overseas, prepping the palette for an international launch.
She’s been retailing ‘Zero Makeup’ worldwide via her e-store but come this January, the makeup will be available at Bloomingdale’s and the Versace Spa in Dubai. Following this, Nabila hopes to expand her market further afield and add new products to the mix. We’ll follow up on that as the year progresses!
ALDO Shoes for Pakistan
Only a small smattering of international brands have ventured into Pakistan so far, which is why it’s great that ALDO will be joining the fray in early 2018. The brand is set to be launched by the Al-Karam group which also manages the Pakistani branches of MANGO, Splash and Babyshop. We love a fancy pair of shoes and we’re hoping that the upcoming ALDO store brings in the latest international shoe trends swiftly in Pakistan.
On another note, it’s good to see a semblance of international investment being made into the country. Brands like ALDO – and even Zara and H&M – have thousands of stores scattered around the world but only a small trickle of foreign brands have so far tried their luck in Pakistan. We need so many more to swoop into our malls – for the love of Pakistan … and the love of fashion, of course!
The lawns, the soirees, the same, the same, the same
On to the very predictable: designer lawns – that don’t usually have anything ‘designer’ about them – will be churned out in multitudes and there will be soirees galore. These ‘it’ affairs will run the gamut from lawn launches to collection launches, exhibits, after-parties, meet n’ greets, success parties down to the birthday parties and the grandest of ‘em all, the shaadis!
Explore: Lawn fever is less about the product and more about buying a lifestyle
Each event is going to be flooded with socialites wearing the latest designer-wear and even if you’re not attending in person, you’ll feel like you’re there in spirit because the pictures will be strewn all across social media.
Nothing very exclusive or ‘it’ about a party that’s all over Instagram, if you ask us.
And what we would wish to see… and what we wouldn’t
On a completely different note, we’d love to see fashion get more interesting rather than follow the market-friendly generic path that it has become so fond of. Whether they choose to be part of fashion weeks or go solo, designers should be able to showcase a distinct, original signature. Above all, less Sabyasachi lookalikes please!
Also, with shows being a dime a dozen, designers need to deliver experiences rather than merely shows. One remembers a Sonya Battla-Kiran Aman collaboration from long ago held at the Karachi Planetarium and Nabila’s spun out some very creative installations in the past. In a milieu where simply laying out a catwalk no longer makes impact, designers need to come up with more out-of-the-box concepts.
Designers, passing off a traditional kameez with side-slits as a short dress is just plain silly. Make a New Year’s resolution, won’t you, to never ever do that again?
We’d also love to see better fashion from fewer fashion shows, better lawn and fewer lawn brands, celebrity stylists delivering on style rather than garish statements and a savvier high-street. Certain trends that are far too ubiquitous to be considered fashionable anymore need to be ditched immediately: the cold shoulder tops, digital prints and the peplums, the peplums, the peplums!
And designers, we love risque, bold designs as long as you know how to work the silhouette. Showing skin just for the sake of it, without any sense of design, doesn’t impress. And when you try to pass off a traditional kameez with side-slits as a short dress, you’re not fooling us. It’s just inexcusable and plain silly. Make a New Year’s resolution, won’t you, to never ever do that again?