INSTEP Magzine


instep exclusive Peshawar fashion: Peeping out from behind the veil Contrary to what you might think, there is a fashion scene blossoming in Peshawar. Instep explores style in the most misunderstood and underestimated city of Pakistan By Maria Tirmizi

Nabeela is a 35-year-old mother of two: a ten-year-old daughter and a nine-year-old son. Her hazel eyes, with just a touch of grey, and clear, ivory complexion speak of her Pathan ethnicity, yet she speaks in a soft, monotonic voice without a hint of a Pushto accent and the professionalism of a car salesman closing in on a Benz deal. Born and raised in Wah (she explains the discrepancy), Nabeela moved to Peshawar some 13 years ago after getting married in a liberal-minded Pathan family from Karachi. The city initially felt alien to her. She didn't socialize much. But there was something that she possessed that would in time guarantee an affiliation with over half the women in Peshawar --her little cardboard box filled with tiny dresses she stitched as a child, speaking of a passion for fashion designing which would one day blossom into a lucrative business setup.

Precisely 9 years ago, she embarked on a small, home-based fashion designing career under the brand name Simones--after her daughter. Word spreads like wild fire in a city like Peshawar--something that can go as much against a woman as for her. In Nabeela's case, it significantly boosted her business and with her modest force of 35 skilled workers behind her, she now claims to have a clientele of approximately 75 percent of women in Peshawar, with many even coming in from Charsadda, Nowshera and Kohat. She has one outlet of her ready-to-wear casual/semi-formal clothes in the main city and another small one inside her home where she meets with clients and takes orders for bridals and formal wear. But with a hoard of home-based, self-proclaimed designers in every street and alley in Peshawar, what sets Nabeela apart?

Apparently, something quite significant. She is the only female fashion designer willing to advertise and promote herself. Nabeela is fortunate to have a domestic support system that does not discourage a woman's right to independently exert her talent and ambitions. She experiences no hang-ups or fears about publicity that is acquired not only through the respectable word-of-mouth avenue, but also through billboards and local cable channels---an approach that no doubt provokes frowns and disapproval of the husbands of other designers.

"I owe a great deal to my liberal minded in-laws and husband. From financial to moral support, my husband has always been with me every step of the way. You know, there are many issues and responsibilities a housewife faces and it can get very challenging to manage a business simultaneously. But he gives me breathing space. During wedding season I've worked till 3 to 4 am and he has always supported me."

"So he's different from the rest," she adds with a meaningful laugh. Peshawar may epitomize North-western conservatism. It may appear to reside in its own little bubble of traditions and values that many from outside don't quite understand. Young girls from Lahore or Karachi may balk at the possibility of visiting the city, let alone living there. But there are many intelligent, beautiful, well-dressed women, born and bred in Peshawar, who are quite content in their bubble and do not understand the hype about 'scary, conservative Peshawar'. They talk to Instep and comment on the bustling, at times fiendish, fashion scene in the city that guarantees that a designer like Nabeela, who keeps her prices limited for the average woman, does remarkably well. One thing they all agree on. Peshawar is rich, colourful and fashion-savvy, regardless of what outsiders feel. And it is promising enough to beckon more designers from outside, pending the flippant policies of the local government.

WITH CASH IN HAND, OUT-OF-CITY DESIGNGERS ARE THE REAL RAGE "I have noticed one thing about fashion in Peshawar," muses Aiman, a 25-year-old girl from an upper class bureaucratic family of the city. "The more inaccessible your designer is, the trendier it is to wear his/her clothes. "There was a time women used to boast about getting their clothes made from Islamabad. But now Islamabad seems so nearby, so it's more fashionable to brag about Lahore and Karachi." Hence, while the larger bracket of women in Peshawar are more than happy to opt for Nabeela, since her bridals do not exceed 80,000 rupees and her ready-to-wear range is between 1200 rupees to 5000 rupees, it is the small section of the rich and spendthrifts who wouldn't even hear of it! For them, it has to be Umar Sayeed or Nilofer Shahid or HSY or, well, you get the picture.

"I have yet to see a bridal dress at any close friend's wedding that has been made in Peshawar. And if I do come across any such dress, it is screaming that it's been made here," laughs Aiman. Another girl in her twenties, Palwasha, also from an upper class family of Peshawar says, "Apart from the charm of a flashy, expensive label that makes girls choose Umar Sayeed over a Peshawar designer is the fact that local designers are not doing anything innovative. They're all making stuff inspired by Lahore and Karachi, user cheaper imitations. Designers from Peshawar can't really put themselves on the map, especially outside the city, if there is nothing different or exciting about their work."

Ask Nabeela what concepts she utilizes in her clothes, and she mentions resham threadwork with a touch of sequins and beads, kora, wasli etc., on chiffons, khadis, silks and jamawars--all that has been done to death all over the country. She even accepts that she shops in Lahore a lot for ideas and materials. But she defends that by saying, ""I can't differentiate my clothes from others because all over Pakistan, you see people following a similar fashion streak of cuts and patterns, whether it's western or traditional. And people here do want me to follow those trends. So I would say that Lahore and Karachi might have mega huge designers but Peshawar is also not far behind. If my work isn't a whole lot better than them, then it is at least not any lesser as well."

She also doesn't consider out-of-city designers competition precisely because they are so very expensive and not for the larger market. Another 19-year-old girl who goes to Nabeela --not for bridals, she insists, but for formal wear that she urgently needs for a wedding---says that she usually takes a magazine and asks her to copy a certain design for her. And Nabeela accepts that she is more than willing to accommodate such clients.

FABRIC CRAZE VERSUS DESIGNGERS No one is oblivious to the fact that there is a huge market of imported fabric in a wide variety of colours, patterns and materials in the bazaars of Peshawar; hence an obsession with clothes exists. Foreign material--cheap and expensive, synthetic and pure--comes in from China, Thailand and Korea in Peshawar's Koochi Bazaars and keeps women, many even from Punjab, shopping till they drop. One college-going girl informed Instep that it is almost unthinkable for her to repeat clothes she has worn once. With Swiss voiles, chiffons, georgette and silks so readily available at such reasonable prices, many households prefer to keep sending a constant stream of fabric to family tailors. "What do you expect when you see so much fabric since your childhood? You get used to it," said the young girl.

Sundus, a young mother of two from a well-established family of Peshawar adds, "There aren't a lot of extra curricular activities in Peshawar. So you go out for shopping. And what do you shop for? Shoes and bags aren't all that great here so you get them from elsewhere. One outlet remaining and that is shopping for fabric." Competing with Koochi bazaar, you find Bareeze, Arooshe, Junaid Jamshed, Al Karam Lawns, and exhibitions of Yasir Waheed, that manage to do spectacularly well as well.

Sami, manager of a Yasir Waheed outlet in Lahore says, "We've had two exhibitions in Peshawar and the response has been amazing both times. They keep calling us for more exhibitions as well but we haven't gone back yet. Actually, we faced some problems in Islamabad. On the day of our exhibition in the capital, the authorities sealed the area around the hotel for some security reasons and people could not show up. Politics affects business everywhere, including Peshawar so we can't take the risk just yet, despite the fact that people in Peshawar are really into shopping and have been asking us to come back a lot." With so much fabric available, girls have gotten used to experimenting with it themselves, rather than going to a boutique or a local designer--especially since many feel that boutique fabric isn't of the best quality. Generation, Reet and Chen One exist in the city with their reasonably priced clothes, but they aren't really the rage.

But fabric craze aside, women say that their pockets, rather their husbands', are large enough to accommodate real, fashion icons in the city. Currently, no boutique of any famous designer is available, though Sobia Nazir does plan to set up an outlet there. Girls insist that it is high time big, exciting names come to the city. "People are ridiculously crazy about clothes here. It'll be strange if big designers don't eventually open up their boutiques," said Sundus. ALL DRESSED UP AND NOWHERE TO GO? Street fashion is an alien concept in Peshawar's chaddar-clad markets. Hence, women are more into formal wear that they can actually show off at weddings and grand tea parties. "You can go outside wearing anything unfashionable hidden under your chaddar. It's only at weddings, school/college functions and parties organized for ladies that you pay some attention to your wardrobe. And it is then that you notice that girls are very much into dressing up, wearing anything from capris to sleeveless, though only a small section of girls wear sleeveless because most families are traditional," says Nabeela. In universities, women tend to cover their heads, with active Jamaat-e-Islami student bodies on campus, but in buildings off the main campus, you would find girls dressed up without a dupatta on their heads, some even in capris, sleeveless, fashionable tunic kameezes etc. And they do look quite modern and chic. It was another time when travel-weary, hackneyed fashion reached the tailors of Peshawar after girls in Lahore were so-over-it. Now, television and magazines have made it easier for girls in NWFP to follow the same trends at the same time in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad. There is another social gathering that has significant importance---funerals. It is here that women from all over town, however remotely familiar with the deceased, gather and offer their tribute so as to not offend the bereaved family with their absence. And it is then that they steal glances at each other's designer lawns over their rosaries. CAN PESHAWAR FASHION OFFER SOMETHING DIFFERENT? A young girl was getting married in Peshawar last year. She decided to order most of her formal wear, including her bridal dress from Karachi and Lahore. But there was something she craved for that could only be found in Peshawar ---Afghani embroidery. "It's very very fine resham threadwork, done on a special cloth and it takes ages to finish. It's so fine that you can actually count the boxes of the weave. You normally find such embroidery on the neck and sleeves of Afghan men's garments and on Afghan women's chaddars," she explains, going on to add that the embroidery came to Peshawar through Afghan refugee camps. "But most women who are skilled at it have left the country so I was really disappointed when I couldn't get it done," she added. Even Nabeela has tried to incorporate afghan embroidery in her clothes, which points at the importance of the work of craftsmen in boosting local, ethnic fashion and saving it from mundane copy work. Apart from embroideries, Nabeela experiments with ethnic velvet peshwas and kochi dresses as well, which might look spectacular with a bit of interesting fusions and alterations. THE 'AFGHAN' GOWNS Visitors are often surprised to find clothing store windows boasting stylish, glossy, western gowns behind the stream of covered heads and beards passing by. Such dresses are mostly worn by Afghani women on their weddings and engagement functions. Starting from 4000 rupees, they go up to 20,000 rupees and are popular even among the non-Afghan population. Abdul Mateen, a 22-year-old Afghani, moved to Peshawar as a toddler. His father owned a large store of wedding gowns in Afghanistan, which he shifted to Peshawar some twenty years back. Zalmay, Abdul Mateen's partner and of the same age, moved to Pakistan when he was 11. Zalmay informs Instep in extremely broken Urdu that his father used to be a Major in Afghanistan. "He had many men reporting to him," he said with endearing child-like enthusiasm. "It was a blessing." "But I'm happy here too," he quickly adds, "business is doing well." Abdul Mateen and Zalmay own the biggest Afghan wedding gowns store in Peshawar, called Jashan-e-Uroos. They use materials like silks, chiffons and tissue, and utilize their own Afghani designers and some Chinese-inspired designs. "You can tell Afghan women apart on the street. They wear long dresses with trousers, mermaid full length skirts, with chaddars on their heads. Locals, on the other hand, are seen in shalwar kameezes and chaddars," informed Palwasha. IS PESHAWAR AS CONSERVATIVE AS WE THINK "Strict?" a hefty, middle aged man who works at a women's fabric store exclaimed in a friendly manner with a heavy Pushto accent, "It's a total misconception. We're not strict people at all!" He shrugs as if the notion is ridiculous. But of course, they are a traditional and conservative people. One particular home-based designer told Instep that she would ask her husband if it was okay to speak to Instep about her designing 'hobby'. She apologized beforehand if she would be unable to call back, explaining politely that it's not really nice to advertise because of the traditional environment in Peshawar. And she never did call back. "I don't know why they feel this way," says Nabeela. "They probably have restrictions from home." Nabeela hasn't done any fashion shows. There are no professional models available and government policies aren't exactly catwalk-friendly. On a private basis, shows can be arranged in universities though and she did try doing that once. "I tried approaching some young designers for a joint fashion show. I had thought of a proper mehndi/barat/walima theme but they didn't give a positive response. Probably restrictions from home again," she guessed. But asking her about the most pressing difficulties she faces as a fashion designer operating in Peshawar, Nabeela says the only issues are related to non-availability of skilled labour. According to her, everything else is A-okay . "Girls here are very aware of the world around them and are quite modern. Iqra Fashion Institute in Peshawar is churning out young, ambitious designers every year. Things are progressing. We call the world a global village, so how can we even think that Peshawar is far behind?" Nabeela asks. "But we are also very traditional," she adds importantly. "We have some values. And we try not to cross them."