INSTEP Magzine


instep review 4 designers, 2 high fashion collections The Samsung Giorgio Armani show sets the fashion ball rolling stylishly into 2008 By Muniba Kamal

The Samsung Giorgio Armani show was held on Christmas and the movers and shakers in Karachi attended it in full force. The chill of the night, the black and beige dress code, the tribute to Giorgio Armani, a fluid bar and everyone who is anyone in fashion were all there. With Sonya Battla, Shamoon Sultan, Ammar Belal and Maheen Karim showing their collections it was very much a high fashion event. Maheen, Rizwan Beyg, Deepak Perwani, Sheherezade and Zahir Rahimtoola, Huma and Amir Adnan, Mehreen and Kamal Jabbar, Hasan Zaidi, Sadaf Malaterre, Nasir Tehrani, Amean J, Batool Rizvi and countless others all turned out. Vaneeza Ahmed was there too (no she was not modeling) and so was Aliya Zaidi with her husband Azher in town from Hong Kong. The show started rather late but it didn't matter, the company was good and spirits were suitably high. Sitting down to the show was exciting and the thrill was due to the fact that the show was structured like an ideal fashion show - fashion week standard. With chairs lined up along either side of the catwalk and all the cameramen at the end, bright lights and thumping music, one could get a sense of what fashion week will be like when it unfolds. Add to that the fact that four truly talented designers were showing and you were in fashion world heaven. There was the sense that things have come a long way and that fashion is truly poised for take off.

Maheen Karim opened the show and the excitement went up. This was the first Maheen Karim show one has attended. One has seen all the outfits on display at Labels, but the thrill of watching a designer's collection on a catwalk is unsurpassed. One has often heard from designers about how scary it is for them to show a collection, but the catwalk is where clothes come to life, modeled by professionals with fluid grace. Okay, the Giorgio Armani show did throw into sharp focus the fact that we don't have professional models, but it threw into equally sharp focus the fact that we do have promising designers like Maheen Karim and some brilliant ones like Sonya Battla.

Maheen Karim showed pieces from her Bijoux line. Her dresses are exquisite and I like the way she makes the embellishment a part of the design of the dress instead of something that is added from top. Take her signature outfit, the gold wrap dress lined in black, the gorgeous coat with the swan motif or the flowing white ankle-length number with a neck that can only be described as a kundan chain that pulls it together and you will know what I mean. She is blamed for being overpriced, but her clothes spell luxury all the way. If you are blowing close to thirty grand on a Maheen Karim original, it would be a case of paisa vasool for the discerning fashion wearer. A lot of fashionistas present said that they didn't find enough variety in her clothes, and while I do agree with that, it is where Maheen Karim is aiming to place herself that must be commended. There may not be a lot of Maheen Karim designs, but the few there are, are well thought out and tailored to perfection with immaculate finishing. Indeed, she was the perfect person to start the show with and Sonya Battla was an even more perfect finish.

When Sonya Battla's collection started its walk down the ramp, there was silence. The music, which till then had been fast paced turned bluesy and models started walking down with an elegance they hadn't displayed all evening. When models feel good, they walk better. Tooba looked spectacular in a silky black sheath that crept up to and entwined her neck with white lace, hair done up, a cap arched on her head, with a cigarette holder, encapsulating the elegant feminine spirit of the 1920s in a dress that pays tribute to the old world charm of the era even as it's simplicity made it very contemporary. Iraj wowed the audience in a black wrap dress edged with cream, holding a gladiola at an angle that offset the lines of the dress. And Fayeza cut the most striking image in kameez with the thinnest straps, see through at the mid riff with a scarp worn severely over her head. Solid colours, beautiful fabric, well cut, well styled, well finished. Sonya Battla's collection deserves every superlative in the fashion lexicon. And above all, it was original.

All silks and flow with skirts that billowed when they had to, shirts that fit well and others that hung lose fell with finesse, a dhoti shalwar with a wisp that went up to a models wrist, Sonya's presented a remarkable fusion of east and west. It was a collection that was progressive in thought and so very Sonya at the same time. In fact, it was a collection that silenced some of her detractors who say that Sonya plays it safe. One agrees that Sonya does, but never when she has to show. And in Pakistan, even while designers experiment, most of what they stock has to be safe to sell to a clientele that has barely begun learning how to take fashion risks. But Sonya Battla to her credit is one of those designers who will never sell their craft to make millions off the fashionably dead bridal market. She does retail for a discerning clientele, if you like it buy it or go somewhere else. Even in her 'safe' pieces there is an innate elegance to a Sonya Battla design. A simple black shirt will have that something extra that will inspire you to wear it to shreds.

I digress, but only because the collection she put up for the Armani show was scintillating. And considering that she picked quite a few pieces from her collection for Pakistan Fashion Week, the Armani show was proof as to where Sonya's imagination is capable of going. This was Sonya Battla aiming for international buyers and media. She showed herself to be the most capable of doing this that night and hopefully, once that process starts, Pakistan will catch up with fashion. Sandwiched in between Sonya Battla and Maheen Karim, Ammar Belal and Shamoon Sultan were at a disadvantage. They are both similar in the sense that they started off with menswear and then took off into womenswear, and they do it in volume stocking at a number of their outlets around the country. Ammar's ABCD and Shamoon's Khaadi are flip sides of Pakistan's retail coin, with Ammar cashing in on Western culture and Shamoon reinventing Eastern wear, but is it high fashion? That night, it certainly didn't seem so. I like some Ammar Belal suits, but that is it. They are basic suits well cut and well-stiched (I believe, in Europe) but they don't have anything extra. And neither did his dresses for women, which have been made here, but they didn't fall well, there was no symmetry to them and one could have commented on the design factor if there was any involved. These were ordinary dresses, with no wow factor, just something you'd pick up off the rack in any random store. There is more of a style element to dresses at Next and Benetton. Shamoon Sultan's Khaadi Khaas is a different best altogether. Shamoon has built up the Khaadi brand very successfully in Pakistan and Khaadi Khaas is his attempt at making the leap to fashion (he has often been accused of being just a retailer). Khaadi Khaas shows promise. A lot of the designs prove that he is thinking very creatively, but it doesn't come together. There are feathered skirts that would look very hip if they didn't make the models look fat and gold dresses that would fit the bill for cocktail dresses if they weren't done in khaadi. He has to make a choice as a designer and a fabric manufacturer: He has to either use fabric from other sources to bring more variety to his designs, or restrict his designs to outfits that would make sense in the fabric he makes or he has to start making fabric that would suit the Western wear that he wants to make. Other than that, both Ammar Belal and Shamoon Sultan need to concentrate on finishing. Sitting in the front row and being able to see loose threads and untidy hemlines will not entice foreign media or buyers into looking you up later. Designing in bulk is not what fashion weeks are for. Next, Benetton and Gap do not show at fashion weeks, but they do employ designers who remain unknown. Khaadi and ABCD are Pakistan's equivalent of the same. Sandwiched in between Maheen Karim and Sonya Battla, their 'fashion' fell apart. However, one thing Maheen (Khan) did say to me later was "What really struck me about the show is that everybody is thinking collections at least. It was so nice to sit there and see shows by four designers who had come up with four distinct themes." With that, one must agree. Lastly, the only thing truly lacking in a spectacular show were the models. Iraj and Nadia and seasoned professionals and Fayezah is all set to inherit the catwalk queen mantle from Iraj. Maha and Juvaria also show promise, but there were girls who are just too short and too uncomfortable in the clothes they are wearing to carry them off. This showed up most clearly in Sonya'a and Maheen's segments where it was essential for the girls who were walking to understand what they were wearing - they obviously didn't. There was some padded underwear protruding horribly from a flowing black sheath and one heard that some models had insisted on tights under Maheen Karim's dresses, when they would have looked better without. It is imperative that Frieha Altaf and others like choreographer Imran Kureishi, stylists Nabila and Tariq Amin and photographers like Tapu Javeri and Amean J help in discovering new girls who can take fashion forward. The Giorgio Armani show was a prime example of a drought in the field of modeling in Karachi. This however, is not the case in Lahore where Ather Shahzad and Khawar Riaz have consistently built and maintained an impressive stable of models ever since the Vinny, Aaminah Haq and ZQ hey days. The high point perhaps of the evening was when model Aliya Zaidi walked up as the Best Dressed Woman of the evening. Her twists and turns and pure chutzpah on the ramp brought back memories of when models were models for the love and fun of fashion and therefore they were so good at it. That spirit is missing in today's girls and that takes away from the essence of fashion. – Show credits: Photography: Rizwan ul Haq Hair & make-up: Humayoun Khan Choreography: Frieha Altaf