Who Are The Top 10 Pakistani Designers You Should Know?

In the modern era its seen that Pakistan’s fashion industry is growing rapidly, and growing hunger for innovations in all fields of design. A mixture of traditional and modern looks is a constant theme for both well-known brands and upcoming talents, giving new ideas for clothing, jewellery, furniture or home products. Here we have discussed the ten most influencing designers of the Pakistan fashion industry.

Nomi Ansari

Karachi based Nomi Ansari belongs from a carpet-weaving family, which doubtlessly determined his future as a fashion designer. His background provides him a helpful knowing of iconography, color balance and print design. Ansari started his studio in Karachi in 2001, also developed couture skills at the Pakistan Institute of Fashion and Design. He has become well known for his bold use of color, encouraging women to mix contrasting separates. His studio houses four major brands, supplying young looking designs to boutiques across the world. Strong attention to silhouettes, plus details like zardozi and crystal embellishments have become Ansari’s trademarks, not excluding his reputation as ‘Pakistan’s King of Color’.

Deepak Perwani

Another best-known Pakistani designer, Deepak Perwani has altered the look of menswear in the country with a new self-assured style. Along with fashion, Perwani has also continued an acting career and role as the country’s cultural ambassador to China and Malaysia. Now his brand also includes women’s wear and accessories, especially in wedding, casual and evening dress. His designs have won many awards, plus a place in the Guinness World Records for the largest kurta. Made to fit a 175-foot-tall person, the kurta weighed 800 kilos and used 800 yards of cotton blend fabric. Smaller kurtas would later be made from the original with donations to children’s NGO, the Edhi Foundation.

H.S.Y

A known couture graduate, Hassan Sheheryar Yasin, also known as H.S.Y, is associated with La Chambre Syndicale De La Couture Parisienne. He has worked as a designer and choreographer in many fashion shows. In 2000 he launched his own label, HSY, which started by specializing in formal and bridal wear. Since then it has become one of Pakistan’s most successful high-end fashion brands, creating offshoots such as a jewelry line, and lifestyle range, highlighting soft furnishings, home accessories and furniture. HSY’s tenor is to continue the country’s rich traditions by keeping Eastern elements in designs that will translate internationally.

Mian Ahad

A charming, tropical and deluxe, Mian Ahad’s furniture designs have achieved acknowledgement internationally. His each piece is diligently manufactured like a piece of art, showing a level of skill that comes from early days of Ahad as a National College of Arts student. Moreover his travels, especially time he spent in Paris, had a major impact on his choice of materials, style and color. We can argue that his work cut across furniture design, to create a whole concept for interiors.Set in 1983, his designer brand, AHAD Home Signature, has become a signified service for customers that include Pakistani high society and foreign nobility.

Maria B

She started a small stitching unit in Lahore, the Maria.B. label has extended enormously to be one of major designer brands of Pakistan. Maria Butt started the label with the purpose to restructure the country’s retail industry by making designer clothes more economical. More than 25 discrete outlets in Pakistan, also exports to at least six other countries, are evocative of Maria.B.’s success. The brand has also dissipated to include a range of totes, clutches and jewelry. Recently more attention has been focused on ready-to-wear ranges, such as cotton and lawn, which are popular lines within her divergent collections.

Karma

Kamiar Rokni and Maheen Kardar Ali started a dashing Pakistani brand Karma in 2001. It has been one of the few South Asian labels to include Western-style clothing, such as evening gowns and cocktail dresses. Karma has latently opened up into lifestyle and accessories collections, along with its modern-looking Pink Label, which accompany the success of the brand’s wedding and couture lines. In 2006 Kamiar Rokni separated with Karma, proceeding to inaugurate a deluxe new brand in his own name. Maheen Kardar Ali famously showed her creative style in 2013 with a distinctive design for a kurta spotlighting 30 carefully selected Bollywood stars.

Salman Jawed

From exquisitely designed trousseau, to immediate casual wear, the Shehla label has displayed Shehla Chatoor’s varying talents since 1995. Chatoor participates in many fashion shows, such as Karachi’s Autumn/Winter 2014 Fashion Pakistan Week, where her Misaki designs took imagination from Japanese Byobu and Fusuma hand-painted screens, plus the armour of Samurai warriors. In comparison, her 2014 Samsara collection unfold her trademark bright colors with long skirts, dresses and saris in luxurious, yet lightweight fabrics. Chatoor has also inaugurated an exclusive costume jewelry line as an inexpensive alternative to fine jewelry. Using ethnic patterns, gold detail and semi-precious stones the eye-catching pieces are designed to accompany both Eastern and Western-style outfits.

Mohsin Ali

A bronze medalist graduate of Pakistan Institute of Fashion and Design, Mohsin Ali is one of the country’s most highly regarded designers. He has galvanized the fashion world with stunning outfits that incorporate traditional materials with new fabrics. Local manufactured embroideries and ancient patterns feature among layers of contrasting styles that work together to create a distinctly urban look. Ali has produced ranges for several clothing brands, and his work has highlighted in shows around the world, as well as locally in Pakistan Fashion Design Council’s Sunsilk Fashion Week. In 2014, at the aforementioned show, he used mostly pastel colours, integrating sporty styles with sheer fabrics in a collection for designer label Libas.

Naushaba Brohi

A rising star, from Fashion Pakistan Week in 2014, Naushaba Brohi, attracted much attention with her debut Spring/Summer collection called Liminal. A mixture of modern styles and native handiwork, her outfits made a strong visual statement through cleanly contrasting dark and light colors. Brohi’s fashion label, Inaaya, encourages the skills of local craftsmen, such as products that are hand made by crafty people in rural Sindh. Her jewelry gained extra limelight when Amal Alamuddin, international human rights lawyer, and wife of George Clooney, was found wearing one of Brohi’s necklaces. She won the British Council’s Young Creative Entrepreneurs Fashion/Design Award in 2014 for the Inaaya brand.