Rubya turns designer: 'A girl’s just trying to make the most of her youth'

An actor, a model and a singer, Rubya Chaudhry is adding 'designer' to her sizable list of credentials.

She hinted the same on Instagram several moons ago, posting a picture of a lace duster jacket that will be part of her first collection:

Her clothing line is in collaboration with the Patiher label, a Karachi-based line that does bridals and formal wear.

Images talks to Rubya about her latest venture:

Images: You're an actor, a model, a singer, and now a designer. You seem bent on exploring a different creative field ever so often... So what has inspired you to design your own clothing line?

Rubya Chaudhry: Being a dreamer and sufficiently popular has its benefits, and a girl’s just trying to make the most of her youth. Being a singer, actor and a model all have to do with performance-related art, which, to me, aren’t very different from one another. I honestly don’t know what my reason for existence would be if I weren’t always at it; something or the other that excites me, challenges me, makes me feel alive. And yes, all the things I take on, do precisely that.

As a model, there came a time when I started hating dressing up. I’m still pretty laid back when it comes to styling myself…but I get bouts of excitement and go all out on occasion. What that period did to me was give me a new perspective on my personal style. It was a part of growing up, and it changed the way I felt about fashion. It gave me an individualistic approach, made me put my heart first. It made me comfortable and courageous.

In all honesty, I’m my own inspiration for this line; the thinker, the wanderer, the little girl that I’ll always be, the woman that I am. And I’m lucky to have Supria Rehman partnering me in my madness. She’s a qualified fashion designer with an already running, successful brand called Patiher. All I want is fun, effortless fashion; pieces that I would happily wear myself, and use as much organic fabric as possible to stitch them. So far, I’ve had nothing but fun creating designs and choosing colors and fabric…it’s like I’ll envision anything and Supria will make it happen. Quite magical. Images: Could you tell us more about your partner label? Patiher appears to be a new label that's primarily focused on bridals and formal wear.

Rubya: Patiher was established about 8 years ago by Supria Rehman. Her designs are a manifestation of rich fabrics, textures and patchwork embellishments. A lot of her work speaks volumes of our glorious heritage; inspired by the architecture of Moen-jo-Daro and Harappa civilizations. Patiher does smart casual wear as well. She has an eye for impeccable workmanship and original ideas to put that craft in order. Supria’s support is invaluable to me.

Images: Will this be a one-off collection for your friend's label or do you plan to keep designing?

Rubya: It’ll be under the house of Patiher, but a separate label altogether. The prospect of being well-received is very exciting, of course. We do plan on expanding with time. Images: Is your first collection still in the design phase, or ready to begin production? Do you have a name for the collection?

Rubya: We’re launching it online for now, mainly on Instagram; open for orders and appointments. The brand is called ‘Children of Spring’. Now just waiting on the tags to arrive!

Images: How would you describe the collection?

Rubya: So far, we’ve done western casuals, with pieces that you can style, however you like, to make your own. It’s for the woman that loves to explore, live, wander, and ultimately, be true to herself. Cute, sexy, comfy, and restricted to no age group. Sometimes crazy, and impulsive, but not losing sight of wearability, comfort and trend.

Maheen Ghani Taseer: The well-heeled debutante

Four short months after launching her label ‘MGT’, Maheen Ghani Taseer is much better known than the usual debutante designer.

Some credit for this can be accorded to the far reaches of social media, where Maheen figures quite often. There’s the feeble argument that her hit-and-miss capsule line at the recent PFDC L’Oreal Paris Bridal Week (PLBW) has put her in the spotlight. Most plausibly, though, it is Maheen’s famous last name which catches attention.

The ‘Taseer’ surname speaks of a family with considerable political clout and also, a predilection for fashion.

Aamna Taseer is Editor in Chief to Lahore’s ‘it’ social directory and weekender Sunday Times with daughter Shehrbano Ellahi Sheikh acting as Managing Editor. Shehrbano also designs luxury-wear for her label ‘Aurora’ and Rema Taseer of ‘Rema Luxe’ fame has an ingenious talent for creating statement jewelry and accessories. And now, Maheen has stepped into the foray with her ‘Valliant’ at PLBW.

What further augments curiosity regarding Maheen is the fact that she is the wife of Shahbaz Taseer, tragically abducted four years ago and yet to be found. Beautiful, young and well-heeled, Maheen epitomizes the tragedy-struck heroine striving to rise against the odds.

“I dedicated my first collection to my husband because I had always imagined him to be by my side when I made my fashion week debut,” she says. “He inspires me every day and this was my way of having a part of him with me.”

Visiting Karachi for a two-day trunk show at multi-fashion boutique Labels, Maheen’s ‘Valliant’ – that’s French for valiant – attracted quite a few interested clients.

“The surname does help in garnering attention but at the same time, it makes people assume that I have things easy,” points out Maheen. “A well-connected family and financial backing may get you through to prospective clients but ultimately, you can only be successful if you have talent and a passion for your work.”

To be fair, Maheen’s collection doesn’t scream ‘statement-wear’, hinting instead towards the designer’s future potential. The play of deep, rich colors is striking and there are some slinky, figure-flattering silhouettes – designs that fall safely into the commercial realms of beautiful bridals, without the edgy element that defines fashion week hits. Apparently, Maheen doesn’t believe in edgy statements for the bride. “Every girl wants to look gorgeous and traditional on her wedding day. I’d rather create stunning designs within these boundaries rather than delve into experimentation that may win critical acclaim but doesn’t make commercial sense.”

“Perhaps some years down the line I may be more inclined towards the out-of-the-box,” she allows. “Right now, though, as I build my business, I just want to create beautiful, well-constructed clothes.”

It makes business sense and should Maheen balance it by tweaking her designs in more unique directions, she may just become a hit. Socialite designers – and Maheen is one – often have an edge over the ordinary designer. The affluent with a penchant for haute designer-wear generally have an intrinsic eye for creating great design also.

For now, her designs are aesthetically pleasing and it is gratifying to see her delve into different color palettes. If nothing else, she’s making an effort to stay away from the pastel-and-sequin path paved by bridal heavyweight Elan that every other brand is now intent on following.  “I made sure that I presented my own design ethos,” she says. “I also enjoy styling so I often advise clients on the kind of hair, makeup and accessories that could complement an outfit.”

Does she plan to showcase a complete collection at fashion week next year, as opposed to the capsule of four designs that she showed as part of the ‘Bank Alfalah Rising Talent Show’ this time?

“Right now, I plan to traverse the trunk show route, exhibiting in different cities and making my work very visible on social media. I am also working on a line of luxury ready-to-wear that I hope to make available by this winter,” she says.

“Once I have made a bigger dent in the market, I’ll shift focus to a fashion week showcase.” Already, one sporadically sees celebrities wearing MGT on the occasional glossy magazine cover and the red carpet; stars like Ayesha Omar and Humaima Malick who know precisely how to carry designer-wear. With the revival of cinema, the red carpet is fashion’s new runway and Maheen understands this well.

She also has a sense for business and a vision for design that is relatively developed at this nascent stage in her career. It shows promise. A famous last name can only help a designer to some extent; after that, it’s talent and dedication that matters.

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Fashion and Music Extravaganza by BDC Lahore

Beaconhouse Defence Campus Lahore managed the FAME (Fashion and Music Extravaganza) and the schools and universities across Lahore attended this two-day event. On the first day, the fashion show was conducted and the management of the event managed the event, ‘Runway Takedown’. The well-known names in the fashion industry including Mehreen Syed, the spokesperson of L’Oreal Paris, leading fashion designer, Ali Xeeshan and the star male model, Jahan-e-Khalid judged these competitions.

In the event, the people having about 20 years of age, showed their talents and the participants were pleased with their working and performance. When the guests, Mehreen Syed and Jahan-e-Khalid walked on the ramp, then this night was concluded.

On the day 2 of FAME, there was music performance in which participants presented their individual performances by singing their eastern and western songs. They also showed the performance by electrifying the Battle of the bands. When the DJ and students along with teachers of BDC showed their own performance, then the crowd went mad with the joy and pleasure. The organizers of FAME made their arrangements of the top class musicians to make the decision of the best singer and music performer and announce the names of the winners. In the judges for the music competition, the Baskshi Brothers (Aafi and Sherry Bakshi), Rizwan Anwar and Arsalan Hasan of BDC Lahore teacher and music producer and artist at Nescafe Basement season 3 were also included.

Beaconhouse A Level campus located at Johar Town won various accolades and it also won the award of best Band. The best delegation award was also given to them. The Soch band made the spine tingling concert to close down the two-days fantastic event.

What to wear this Eid: Capes, lace and gently flared pants make the cut

 The run up to Eid is always full of exhibitions and new collections. Whether you splurge on luxury designer pret or shop the high-street for the perfect Eid jora, there are plenty of chic options to make a style statement.

At the top of the market, designers like Shehla Chatoor, Elan and Zara Shahjahan have exquisite Eastern pret collections. Shehla only offers bespoke outfits but Elan and Zara Shahjahan both stock pret at their outlets. The look is elegant and understated – delicate hand embroidery on silk nets and chiffon in contemporary Eastern silhouettes.

 Sania Maskatiya stocks everything from printed silks to sumptuous embroidered outfits while Nida Azwer has a more limited but equally desirable selection.

 Ayesha Somaya also offer a wide range of affordable designer pret. All three use a mix of hand and machine embroidery and offer both traditional and uber-trendy cuts.

 There is a whole host of established designers working out of their studios and stocking at multi-labels stores. Sanam Chaudri’s Eid line is full of delicious details while Saira Shakira, Layla Chatoor and Farida Hasan are always hot picks at Eid.

 Upcoming designers like Sehrish Rehan, Amber Gohar and Zohra Alam may never have shown at fashion week or stocked pret anywhere but they have a steady clientele and their Eid collections are highly sought. Look to these for modern cuts and an Eid look that is a little different from the norm.

 Eid also brings out a plethora of indie designers and part-timers, who only exhibit occasionally. The weekends leading up to Eid are packed with exhibitions by the likes of Aleena and Fareena in Karachi and Maison De Lace in Lahore as well as lesser-known names.

 Some of the prettiest Eid outfits are often to be found at these exhibitions. This year Nazli Akbar’s feminine lace and chiffon confections were particularly popular in Karachi. While exhibitions can be a mixed bag, it’s worth trawling through them for those that combine good quality and a fine aesthetic sense.

 Various established designers, including Saira Shakira, Ayesha Somaya and Mehreen Menahel, started off with exhibitions of this sort.

Finally there’s always the high street or designer fabric. If you can trust your tailor to do a good job, Faraz Manan’s silk collection with Crescent and Farah Talib Aziz’s ‘Mediterranean Dream’ for LSM are two lovely mill-designer collaborations.

If tussling with your tailor is out of the question, Ideas and Chinyere both stock attractive formal ready-to-wear.

With Eid falling in late summer, many designers have been focusing on pastel colours and sheer fabrics with accents of beads and pearls. Lace is very fashionable as both an accent and as a base fabric, whether its faux Chantilly lace, giupure or crochet lace. Lace is also great for trousers - Mahnaz Adamjee’s bootcut lace pants are stunning and are available in go-with-everything beige as well as black.

Fashion week: Bringing on bridals

Fashion week itself buzzed and throbbed and brought on the glamour in heavy doses. The celebrity quotient ran high; amongst the audience one spotted Fawad Khan with his wife, Farhad Humayun, Juggun Kazim and a somewhat befuddled Rashid Rana making sense of the bridal brigade. Lip-synced concerts were the order of the day on the catwalk: Ali Sethi sang for Fahad Hussayn’s finale, Uzair Jaswal for Nomi Ansari and Sara Haider for Mahgul. Mira Sethi walked for Nickie n Nina, Humayun Saeed and Mehwish Hayat for Nomi Ansari and Ali Xeeshan’s showcase featured Misha Shafi, Sohai Ali Abro and Mickey and Minnie Mouse (more on that later)!

Designers face the daunting task of marrying tradition with statement-wear, somehow creating a collection that is distinctive and yet, pleases the deep-pocketed oft-conventional client. The one question that kept winding its way into social media via Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat that have, with the aid of some very nifty cellphone cameras, made one yearn for constructive critique, is: Was every light-hued design with beaded embellishments trying to copy Khadijah Shah of Elan or Faraz Manan? Both designers are indisputable bridal heavyweights, their forte lying in creating ethereal pastels. But if all and sundry are following in their wake, perhaps it’s time that they move out of their comfort zone and shake things up with brilliant color or a bit of spunk?

Bridal design is only fashion forward when its tries to push past its gilded boundaries and set new trends in a bling-infested arena. Fortunately, there was much more to PLBW than an influx of pastels, sequins and net. The few who stood out, created magic. “We wanted to create pieces that stand out as separates as well as complete outfits,” explained Kamiar Rokni. “Bridal couture is expensive, after all.” The result was ‘Alchemy’, a collection that showcased works of art guised as bridal-wear; unabashedly bold and breathtakingly beautiful. Traversing inspirations from around the world, modulating them into interesting collars, sleeves, skirts and jackets and then, blending them with all the colors of the rainbow, this was the House of Kamiar Rokni’s return to the catwalk after a two-year sabbatical and it enthralled.

Equally colorful but following a very different ethos was Nomi Ansari’s ‘Oudh’. Floral prints and embellishments in a quintessential technicolor palette stood resplendent in heavy smatterings of sequins and Swarovski crystals. The silhouettes were refreshingly tapered, there were quirky can-cans and layers upon layers of color, all created with a finesse that is testament to Nomi’s wizardry. Bling dominated … but, for once, in the right way.

Elan’s ‘The Jasmine Court’, meanwhile, was scintillating, merging pastels with bursts of bright color and standing out for its delicate, intricate detailings. The play with structure, hemlines and incorporation of the shalwar were absolute highlights and reaffirmed Khadijah Shah’s status as a bridal big gun. Beyond the lure of the unwieldy farshi gharara, many other designers preferred savvy statements without the aid of heavy-duty embellishment. Sana Safinaz opted for the slinky and classy, cinching gowns and tunics at the waist, molding peplum hemlines and surface-treating fabric, layering it with organza and working it with machine and hand embroideries. The resulting designs were avant-garde and eye-catching, reflective of how wedding-wear doesn’t need to always rely on overdoses of bling.

In a similar vein, Shamaeel Ansari broke away from her signature opulence to present a line that was modern, very well-structured and reinvented traditional zardozi and mixed it with print. There were beautiful cut-worked capes, embroidered sashes, short flared shirts, dramatic upturned collars, tasseled hems and loose, flouncy pants … an amalgamation of luxury-prêt and trousseau-wear that veered wedding apparel towards the trendy.

Fledgling brands Mahgul and Saira Shakira impressed the audience by showing distinctive signatures and resisting over embellishments. Mahgul’s eight-outfit capsule was a treat with its 3D detailing, thread-worked pants, tapered silhouettes and out-of-the-box statements such as a heavily embroidered dupatta wound around the wrists. Saira Shakira’s toed more conventional lines and the designers need to concentrate on better finishing. Certain statements, though, were unique and could become wedding-wear favorites: zig-zag embroideries, trouser legs featuring disparate embellishments and of course, predominantly short hems.

On the other end of the spectrum, there was Sania Maskatiya’s very pretty ‘Afsaneh’. With a consistent eye on retail, the designer worked velvet with organza and brocades and aligned machine embroideries with zardozi, sequins and aari-work. The silhouettes remained retail-friendly: capes and loose, short tunics paired with cigarette pants. And what would bridal fashion be without designers faltering towards conventional, repetitive waters? Fahad Hussayn’s ‘Matam’, for instance, was crafted with impeccable workmanship but although stunning, this collection could have been so much more effective had the silhouettes been less conventional. Misha Lakhani’s understated elegance, unique color combinations and neat craftsmanship is always a pleasure to observe but her silhouettes —– lehngas, saris and loose kurtas – were far too reminiscent of her earlier work. There were elements that worked in HSY’s grand finale — the naqshi and gota merged with laser-cutting was beautiful — and others that didn’t.

Ali Xeeshan’s ‘Toofan’, also reflective of his previous collections, included bright swirls of gota and riots of color. However, from elaborate neon accessories to Sohai Ali Abro and Meesha Shafi as showstoppers to Disney characters dancing on stage, the theatrics took the spotlight away from the clothes. Overplaying the drama doesn’t always work — this is something that the designer needs to understand.

Accessorize!

Rivaling the clothes was regal statement jewelry. Among the most notable; Sherezad Rahimtoola’s elaborate jhoomars, teekas and matha-pattis complemented the splendor of Elan; Indian jewelers Vasundhara accessorized Mahgul’s collection and the House of Kamiar Rokni showcased jewelry from Rehana and Shakil Saigol’s The Private Collection. Fahad Hussayn, with his penchant for dramatic catwalk looks, fashioned faux polkis, old kundan and nauratan into Marathi naths and Mughal-inspired saharas. Complex and veritably theatrical, the accessories caught the eye as much as the clothes.

With the assorted jewelry options on the catwalk, perhaps it would make sense for the PFDC to formally include the names of jewelry designers in their line-ups. Anyone on the lookout for wedding-wear is usually also interested in jewelry, after all.

The business end

And following fashion week was a constant flow of exhibits and trunk shows, cashing in on hot-off-the-ramp designs. It’s great to see the business of fashion spurring on and while most designers took orders for the upcoming year, Umair Tabani of Sania Maskatiya committed to clients for weddings in upcoming November.

“Our focus this time was primarily on trousseau and since we have mixed machine with hand embroideries, it will be easier for us to replicate these designs,” he reasoned. Fashion week and prompt retail … that’s the business of fashion for you and Sania Maskatiya has been a veritable harbinger of it. 

Meanwhile, the Pakistan Fashion Design Council (PFDC) had strategies of its own to devise — namely, a counterattack to help designers through the crippling taxes imposed upon them recently. A refusal to pay these taxes had lead to the temporary closure of several designer stores in Lahore but the PFDC planned to now come to the designers’ defense, said the council’s Chairperson Sehyr Saigol. “We have been asked to pay a service tax when as designers; we are already paying a good tax. The designs we create are completed goods that are then sold at stores. This is an argument that we hope to raise with the government right after this fashion week.”

It may turn out to be an uphill battle but it’s good to see the council step in to support the design fraternity. The PFDC, as a credible, respected council for local fashion, also needs to fine-tune collections more stringently now. When new brands falter, it is admissible — but one wonders what happened to some of fashion’s most acclaimed names this time when threads fell out on the catwalk and designs slipped into shimmery, blinding tedium.

Time will tell. Till the next fashion week … may creativity live on, bridal ennui die … and the pastels make a definitive, much-awaited exit!

The top six

1. The House of Kamiar Rokni — for yet another collection that captivates and pushes the pretty realms of bridal design towards the creative and edgy.

2. Elan — for exquisite workmanship over a very feminine palette.

3. Sana Safinaz — for boldly going where no bridal had gone before with some very swanky, not-too-heavy sartorial statements.

4. Nomi Ansari — for mixing up a veritable candy-store of colorful bridal offerings.

5. Shamaeel Ansari — for re-addressing bridals with her high-end luxe signature; merging texture, pattern, print and embellishment with success.

6. Fahad Hussayn —  for his painstaking love for details and elaborate design, set off by some very gorgeous jewelry, also made in house.

Overheard at fashion week

“I am so tired of dressing up for fashion week; I am not even going to wash my face once it ends.”

“Is the wi-fi working?”

“Someone stole all my press goodies!”

“That’s a Faraz Manan copy!”

“That’s an Elan copy!”

“This music is making me go to sleep.”

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, September 25th, 2015