I was curious to see how Fahad Hussayn would fare in the pretty, pretty world of lawn design. After all, ‘pretty’ has never been Fahad’s signature style. Give him the macabre and the theatrical, a gothic Raakh Raat, a luxurious Laaj Nagar or a grandiose ode to Alexander McQueen and he’d set a fashion week runway ablaze. I wondered how his aesthetics would fit into the conventional, decorative, unstitched three-piece restrictions of lawn.
To give him credit, Fahad has pulled out all the stops in the promotion of his debut, aptly titled the Fahad Hussayn Print Museum. For one, he has teamed up with textile giant Ittehad which basically ensured exhibitions and distribution across the country, billboards galore and a glamorous Priyanka Chopra as his brand ambassador. Priyanka, as Bollywood’s hottest actors at the moment, must have cost an arm and a leg but these are mere expenditures for a company like Ittehad, of course.
Besides, it makes sense to invest in an Indian actor since Ittehad plans to export a major part of their collection abroad, to places like the Middle East, UK, USA and India, where Priyanka is far more recognisable than any of our local models.
Add in Frieha Altaf for the brand’s launch here in Karachi and you’ve got an event that is sure to make waves and be splattered all over the social pages. Frieha may be organiser to all sorts of events but fashion’s always been the game that she plays best. As an ode to Fahad’s penchant for black and white, Frieha had a chequered podium in the two colours set up in the centre of the venue. Mannequins stood on the podium, dressed in ornate lawns, nets and an array of gorgeous, digitally-printed silks.
The focal point of the event, though, was the entrance, that opened up on to the catwalk. A number of celebrities, from cricketer Waseem Akram to stylists Peng Qureshi and Rukaiya Adamjee, ex-model and fellow lawn entrepreneur Vaneeza Ahmed, models Ayaan and Hira Tareen, among others, walked into the hall to find that they were walking a ramp. The women had all come wearing stitched versions of the prints that they had been given.
Quite the glamourous event but it certainly doesn’t spell commercial success for Fahad’s debut. I remember a similar launch that Frieha had planned last year that marked Kamiar Rokni’s collaboration with Bonanza for designer lawn. The event got extensively covered, the city was dotted with billboards and yet the lawn didn’t do well — which is why we don’t see Kami designing lawn for Bonanza this year around. Lawn’s a clustered business in which only a few succeed and most fail and the only thing that can keep Fahad afloat is if people actually like his prints.
So is Fahad Hussayn’s lawn pretty? Sure, it is — which lawn isn’t? It does lack his quintessential style, though. Fahad Hussayn, at a fashion week, has a penchant for black, luxe fabrics and the dramatic. The lawn does reflect his design aesthetic to some extent but for the sake of commercial viability, I feel, Fahad has injected in a lot more colour, embellishments, satin linings, buttons, et al. “Lawn is for the summer,” he reasons. “And I think colourful outfits look great in summer.”
Much more exciting is the line-up of unstitched silks, chiffons and nets that are also part of the collection. The silks are digitally-printed and are avant-garde Fahad Hussayn — my personal favourite is a gorgeous grey-green piece with buildings printed on to it. Almost the entire collection — the single shirts and the lawns — are priced under Rs5,000, which appears to be the going price for designer lawn this time around.
Also, stitched versions of the collection are expected to be available this March. “We wanted to launch the unstitched collection and then proceed to the stitched,” says Fahad. “The stitched pieces will be available at Ittehad’s selling points across the country, at multi-labels like Ensemble and at my own flagship store, Fahad Hussayn Prodigy, which is launching soon in Lahore.” The Prodigy store, incidentally, will be mainly dedicated to Fahad’s bridal designs and will stock bridal separates.
It’s high time, of course, that Fahad stepped into ready-to-wear.
His designs may have always been admired and applauded but they’ve also been notorious for never quite reaching the retail racks. “Earlier, I did replicate my designs but production constraints didn’t allow me to produce in the quantities that were required,” explains Fahad. “The clothes would fly off the racks before I had time to replenish stocks. This is the main reason why I have stepped into lawn. It allows me to translate my aesthetics into affordable ready-to-wear — for instance, embroidery patterns can be converted to print and the fabric is lighter also.”
Tall plans, high hopes: Fahad’s also planning to participate in two successive fashion weeks in the coming months — Fashion Pakistan Week in Karachi and the Pakistan Fashion Design Council’s (PFDC) fashion week in Lahore. All exciting news but as a sceptic who’s seen far too many declarations boil down into absolutely nothing, I’ll see it when I believe it. Fingers crossed, of course.
Maliha Rehman is a Life&Style and fashion journalist with an obsessive, compulsive need to write.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 26th, 2013.
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