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instep
review
Who needs India, anyway!
The brouhaha surrounding the toning down of the annual Carnival
De Couture to a grander Ensemble show was pointless. It was smaller,
but also sleeker and far more stylish. Instep counts the ways...
By Aamna Haider Isani
Photography by Faisal Farooqui at Dragonfly
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Driving
down the dark abyss of a road that embraces the sea and leads to
the Golf Club in Karachi, no one could have imagined the confetti
explosion that lay at its very other end. But that's what the Ensemble
Show was and is: hope that something to cheer about just might be
waiting around the corner, at the end of these dismal times. The
silver lining perhaps. For many people the evening began as an escape
from what our lives revolve around these days - religious intolerance
and political incompetence - but what it very quickly became was
a commitment to being Pakistani, vis a vis some very powerful Pakistani
fashion and equally celebrated Pakistani pop music.
When Kamiar Rokni took his bow - after showing a collection cultivated
in southern Punjab - wearing a T-shirt that read 'No one's leaving
home. I love Pakistan', he touched an eager spirit and gave fashion
wings to soar. Together with Iman Ahmad of Body Focus Museum, Rizwan
Beyg, Maheen Karim and Sadaf Malaterre - five cutting edge designers
that made us proud with powerful collections - they all took the
show to another level altogether. As fashion flirted away with a
very attentive audience, the beautiful rose infused marquee quickly
filled up with the voices of optimism. And those voices finally
culminated in a high frequency performance by Atif Aslam. From the
masses to the classes, who could have imagined that high society
would sing along to each and every one of this pop singer's songs
like children in a school choir? Women practically went ballistic.
A blind date had become a match made in heaven! |
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The
Pond's Ensemble Show raised the bar for fashion events in Pakistan
and it won't be easy finding another set of designers as diverse
and yet equally talented as the ones who showcased that evening.
Iman Ahmad - who has confidently taken to the limelight in the past
one year - opened the show with what one has to acknowledge as a
brilliant collection, even the most powerful that evening. Every
outfit effortlessly flowed into the other with the ease of gentle
waves lapping at banks of the Bosphorous. The Moors reigned influence
over the entire collection, from it's exclusive screen prints that
wove cerulean and shades of aqua blue with vivid strokes of rustic
orange and white, it's flowing earthy summer silhouettes and it's
hand crafted accessories. Not a shalwar kameez or patch of traditional
embellishment in sight, this collection was all about the importance
of adaptability while retaining individuality. It was a melting
pot of cultures, a concept that one would like to see more of in
Pakistan. Modest, yet uninhibited by the clutches of what we as
a people love to call 'culture', this was a collection that could
just as easily be worn as eveningwear in Karachi or as resort wear
on a cruise ship to Spain. More ideally, it belonged on an international
runway as part of a fashion week. In two words, Iman's collection
for Ensemble was Simply Stunning. |
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Rizwan
Beyg closed the show with a finale that was just as much of a show-stopper.
As his models stepped out and took position on the runway, they
were nothing short of brilliantly orchestrated mannequins, raveled
from head to toe in a diaphanous outburst of muslin made opaque
by an exaggerated use of the fabric. The collection was undoubtedly
a continuation of Rizwan's Ascot Collection presented at the last
Ensemble Show, which also carried through traces of his earlier
and much celebrated Carnival Collection.
This transition or creative stream of consciousness has become Rizwan
Beyg's identity. As someone rightly said that evening, Rizwan finds
it very difficult to break away from one collection for another
and so he carries bits of it through. And as butterflies metamorphose
from cocoons to vivid colours, one has observed Rizwan gradually
metamorphose in reverse: from absolute colour to an absolutely nude
palette, his first love being for shades of white. This collection
depended neither on colour nor embellishment for strength, it simply
brought out the life of a humble fabric in the hands of a very talented
couturier. The best thing is that while these were very much couture
pieces put out that evening, Rizwan has just as fluently transcribed
this collection into ready to wear for Ensemble Karachi. |
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While
Iman and Rizwan both displayed immense versatility in fashion construction,
Kamiar Rokni gave his collection a deeper soul by packing it with
patriotic and political punch.
His collection was in awe of neither foreign shores nor international
trends, rather it looked inwards and took an introspective ride
back to the interior of his hometown. The House of Kamiar Rokni
paid homage to southern Punjab and Bahawalpur in specific, and it
made a statement that proclaimed pride in being Pakistani. While
that statement may just be a tad bit over optimistic in these troubled
times, it did present a temporary sense of euphoria. The colours
and themes of Punjab took the province known for sufi saints and
romantic legends back to its artistic ancestry, far far away from
the legions of terrorism that the world so eagerly gazes at it for
these days. The Jalwana collection made a statement and what a great
statement it was.
Not
that it can be summed up for its purpose alone. The clothes were
just as courageous as the statement they made. Pure organic cotton,
spun in the Punjab was block printed in true ajrak (an indigenous
block print motif popular in Punjab and Sindh) style. It was dyed
in festive colours of the land and embroidered with various taankas
including the rilli, gotta, cutwork, modernized with beads. But
while it borrowed its soul from the soil, it grew wings capable
of lifting it beyond archaism. Wide leg pants that flared from under
a slim fit sherwani, a bare back complimenting a high aristocratic
neckline: this collection was about experimentation and finding
balance in it. The collection also featured a debut jewellery collection
by Maliha Naipaul, Kamiar Rokni's close friend who he also refers
to as 'in-house muse". And with its Bahawalpuri influence (Maliha's
hometown), it was A-appropriate for the Jalwana collection.
Diversity
was indeed the core value of this show. No two collections were
alike and each extremely diverse within their own periphery. The
last two designers - Maheen Karim and Sadaf Malaterre – may
have appeared like newborn colts on unsteady legs when compared
with Iman, Rizwan and Kamiar Rokni but they managed to stand on
their own if valued for what they stood for. In a solo show, Sadaf
and Maheen would certainly have made a greater impact.
Sadaf
Malaterre, a designer who has stuck to what she wants to design
without being swayed by commercial demand, put out dresses and saris
that were dotted with a desire to have fun. The detailing on Sadaf's
dresses was delightful, whether it was in the form of a hemline
trimmed with garden flowers or a dress delicately cut out in disks.
Bright colours and boisterous cuts were sent out on the runway,
poking a finger in the eye of tradition and Talibanisation, dare
one try to take their spirit away. There were ruffles that teased
their way over the body and a hint of burlesque in the strapless
jumpsuits accented by prim and proper, almost stiff collars. It
was fun. And it caught the eye of the younger generation of fashionistas,
raring to kick up their heels and dance the night away. Again, as
with every designer that night, one could see these collections
making their way to fashion weeks anywhere in the world.
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Maheen
Karim, another young designer who has already won Best Designer
award at the Lux Style Awards, displayed the strong handle she has
on fashion. There were pieces which bore testament to her skill
as a designer: a hemline-dropping dress (her signature piece), a
flaring tailcoat jacket, a couple of pretty gold lace and net dresses
- there was a lot to admire. The very strong pieces in the collection
were the solid dresses in satin, which displayed Maheen's expertise
in drape, pleat and putting a gown together. The short dresses -
especially a tricolour shift in sequins - just showed how comfortably
rooted in western luxury pret this designer is. The sequined jumpsuits
- one of them worn to catty perfection by Iraj - would definitely
be remembered as the most fun piece of the collection, that she
herself titled Collier. But other than the catty jumpsuits, this
was Maheen Karim playing it safe and we've certainly seen enough
of her to believe that she is capable of taking it to the next level
now. The only slight deterrent in both collections, by Sadaf and
Maheen, was that the designers had put out a bit of everything they
do best, risking repetition and losing the complete semblance of
being a true collection on the way.
This was the Ensemble show in a nutshell, one of two that happen
every year, except this time Ensemble joined hands with the Teachers
Resource Centre to raise funds for the committee that had suffered
the cancellation of the annual TRC fundraiser for the last two years.
The biannual Ensemble shows have become landmarks of fashion's landscape
but this show - sponsored by Ponds and catapulted to a higher level
by Zeba Husain and the Friends of TRC committee - set a precedence
that will be hard to follow. But follow it must; it's a lifeline
that must not fall flat. One hopes to see the Lux Style Awards,
also sponsored by Unilever, take it from where Ensemble has left
and ensure a bigger and better show this year.
The annual TRC fund raiser had been suffering postponement for the
past two years as it could not confirm the involvement of Indian
content in terms of designers, models and above all, Bollywood stars.
They have been the crowd pullers at the TRC shows so far…
only so far, might one add. Because that night it was the Pakistani
designers who put out a show that'll go down in history as a milestone.
Except for Rohit Bal's Sheen Mubarik Collection and Tarun Tahiliani's
Fireworks that wowed critics in Pakistan, these five collections
shown last week were infinitely better than most fashion that has
traveled from India. One has witnessed overseas designers like Suneet
Varma, Rina Dhaka and Manish Malhotra bring in fashion that left
a lot to be desired. There have been moments to cherish: an auction
conducted by Arjun Rampal or a catwalk by Shilpa Shetty, but in
all honesty, this show was better than anything previously shown.
Atif Aslam surely gave the crowd a lot to go wild over and one has
not seen them in higher states of hysteria. And the general mood
at the end of the night was, "who needs anyone else now anyway?"
--Hair
and makeup:
Tariq Amin
Choreography:
Frieha Altaf
Event Management: TRC Committee
Decor: Saeeda Leghari |
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