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instep
review
The Red Night
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The
Basant-Coke show was a cornucopia of Frieha Altaf's creative make-over
of the old walled city and Lahore's proud heritage that was glammed
up with rich collections by Sadia Mirza, Nomi Ansari and Deepak Perwani.
Where fashion paused, music took over. With Ali Azmat, Ainee, Ali
Zafar and many more there was Masty at Lahore's Masti Gate! By Amira
Zaidi
On route to one of Lahore's 13 Gates, we circled the Fort that was
beautifully lit up and surrounded by thousands of fancy cars for the
Basant night. The entire city's cream had gathered there whereas the
remaining surrendered to the Masti Gate that lied at its East. Roads
were blocked off and shuttle services carried guests up to the main
entrance of Asif Jah's haveli. There was no pushing or shoving at
the gate and guests calmly walked past the first entrance. But the
unruffled exterior belied the crowd building up inside. It was only
fifteen minutes past dinner time and the tables already looked swamped.
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And
then the task began. One had to struggle to make way through to the
courtyard where the event was going to take place. Nothing was mentioned
regarding cell-phone bans, yet some phones were being taken away and
others were forcibly being shut off. Security was so tight that it
could've meant only one thing – was the President coming?
The decor was breathtaking. Red, not the conventional yellow, veils
fell through the jharokas, Coke projections beamed onto the tall walls
of the fort, white kites dived down into the courtyard or floated
around just where you could comfortably see them. The carpets, the
lanterns along the catwalk and the symmetry of the chairs, everything
looked well in order. However the show that was meant to start at
10pm was about 40 minutes late and this was a mistake. Not because
it was late because 'late' is normal for the Pakistan standard time.
It was a mistake because suddenly there was too much happening - welcome
announcements, the hosts' chit chat, which I will come to later and
video clips and mimes based on each of Lahore's Gates - thirteen in
all, with additional fashion catwalks and performances by music artistes
lip-syncing to their hits. The night was young, but not young enough
as the clock was ticking away and the guests were over an hour away
from their homes where they'd return once the evening was over. The
videos and mimes were very informative, though less pertinent to the
festival and more to the location that everyone had gathered at. They
were about how these gates came into being, what their significance
was and that Lahore has an exceptional heritage. |
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There's
no doubt about that. But there did arise some doubt on behalf of the
guests. This was the Abrar-starved audience that wanted to dance their
night away like they had at this very venue. While the venue was perfect,
the guests were not very cultured, to say the least. And strangely
enough, the videos voice-overs were in English, instead of the language
of proud Lahore that night.
A treat to the eyes among some so-to-speak dull moments of history,
were the two hosts, Natasha (Nattie) and Mikal. The audience was relatively
numb when they walked in, till she had to say "can you clap for
us?" and so they did. She was clad in a gaudy red and gold ensemble
from Nomi Ansari's LSA collection and though Natty looked beautiful,
the fact that she was reading out even the simplest of things from
the paper in her hand made her presence a bit of a bore. She announced
the designers for the show being Sadia Mirza, Nomi Ansari and Deepak
Perwani. Dances were to be performed by Kiran and Nighat Chaudhry,
the show's choreography was by Beena and Pappu Samrat and its concept
and direction was Frieha Altaf's. The first gate briefed on was Taxali
Gate. Following this was a fashion show that had chiffon clad models
in fluid dusty-colored togas, dhotis and sarees. The look put together
by the Catwalk team showed off the very bright gold jewelry provided
by Ali Javeri. |
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The pattern of showing a video clip and a mime regarding one of the
Gates continued with performance or fashion inserts. Ali Zafar was
the hit item of the evening. He came in dressed apropos to the Mughal
theme, wearing a thugha/sherhwani and white topi first, singing 'Khedeya'.
But Ali thankfully changed his look and made repeat entries, the cultural
finale being his hot track 'Masty' with twenty-some dancers and then
the 'Sajania' remix, when all the models walked the ramp. Other performances
that went on in the wee hours of the day were of Annie, Overload and
Coke's favorite, Ali Azmat. It was an action-packed event that had
too many items pressed into a show starting an hour and half before
midnight. Had the mimes been put together and presented separately
to a ticketed audience interested in Lahore's heritage, on a day other
than Basant, it would've definitely made a mark. But that night the
crowd had gathered to party and the documentaries proved to be too
sophisticated for the mood of the evening. --Photography
by
Faisal Farooqui
Hair & Makeup
by Shahzad Raza
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