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The view from the other side
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The recently-concluded Lakme India Fashion Week has set off a speculation spree in the subcontinent. AYESHA JAVED AKRAM reports.
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NEIGHBOURS' ENVY: Models displaying creations of Tarun Tahiliani and Rohit Bal at the recently concluded Lakme India Fashion Week in New Delhi.
THE LAKME India Fashion Week is a thing of the past in Delhi. The daily reports and live-interviews are over and done with. At the most, it gets an inside page mention or a television station starved for content might do a re-run of the shows. Meanwhile, in Pakistan it seems to have triggered off an interesting stream of events. News of Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI) has been filtering down to Lahore and Karachi for quite a while now and all this has started making our designers somewhat uncomfortable.
Indians and Pakistanis have an interesting competitive psychology at play all the time: we love each other's food, fashion and music yet want to outdo the other all the time. The fact that India has a remarkably active fashion council, has been a constant source of pain for us here. Why can't we do it? Why are they taking over the international market? These questions have been making the round for some time now and finally the fashion industry has decided to do something about this. Ever since the Lakme India Fashion Week was over in New Delhi, the buzzword has been the `Pakistan Fashion Council'. First, it was the Pakistan Fashion Federation then there were some who suggested we ought to call it Pakistan Design Council but now the decision seems to simply call it the Pakistan Fashion Council.
But in Pakistan and especially in the fashion industry, things are rarely as simple as they appear to be. Those who were not invited to the introductory meetings of the Pakistan Fashion Council have decided to form their own little body and so work has begun on three different councils, which means that our first fashion week will take place sometime in the year 2020!
One cannot help thinking why Pakistan is facing these problems when India seems to have emerged with a fashion council almost effortlessly. One reason could be that in Pakistan there is hardly any government patronage but then the FDCI is also a non-government body and is not funded by the Indian Government.
So then where does the problem lie? Hard to say, but from what one saw of the Indian fashion industry, one felt there was a sense of camaraderie that is sadly missing in Pakistan industry. Somewhere along the line, the Indian designers seem to have figured out that their survival lay in sticking together and not in trying to out-do each other. This is why, one heard Rohit Bal calling Ritu Kumar's collection "a breath of fresh air", and saw two other designers basking in the glory of Tarun Tahiliani's Milan triumph. Insecurities exist on both sides of the border but the Indians have been able to put theirs aside while Pakistanis are still stuck with fragile egos. To be fair to the Pakistani designers, there is a reason to feel insecure and threatened. The market for fashion is much smaller than in India. The economic conditions in Pakistan mean that very few have money to splurge on designer outfits. With every change of government, the fashion industry feels threatened: last year Prime Minister Jamali almost ordered a blanket ban on fashion shows.
In such an environment, it makes even more sense for Pakistani designers to concentrate on the international market as opposed to local buyers. Though most realise this, almost all are at a loss as to exactly how they should go about it. Designers tend to indulge heavily in what can only be referred to as suitcase export: pack some clothes into a bag and sell them abroad. While these activities can lead to some pocket money, they can scarcely do more than that. But then the attitude of designers seems to be, no pain and all gain. They are scared of marketing themselves abroad or procuring outlets on foreign ground. This is why having a Fashion Week has become so important but, when will it happen is the million dollar question?
Maybe Vinod Kaul after his resignation as Executive President of FDCI, may accept one here. Stranger things have been known to happen.
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