Source(google.com.pk)
I have an inkling why this year, so many people have decided to jump onto the lawn bandwagon. And why they’re going berserk, putting up billboards at every imaginable place and investing in grandiose red carpet affairs, expecting to haul in huge profits with their respective lawn brands. My guess is it’s all because of Sana and Safinaz.
Last year, the designer duo made the groundbreaking decision to debut with a lawn line of their own. After having designed lawn for different mills for 14 years, sisters-in-law Sana Hashwani and Safinaz Munir decided it was time to venture into the lawn race backed by their own, personal investments. The ‘Sana Safinaz’ lawn brand launched all over the country and what a launch it was! In Karachi alone, roads were blocked all the way from Zamzama to the venue in Clifton on the exhibition’s first day. Lahore was no better. Women pushed, shoved and screamed and stocks at the three-day long exhibition lasted for just two days. ‘Thank you, we’re sold out’ said the sign outside the closed exhibition hall, much to the consternation of the women who hadn’t managed to purchase a piece of designer lawn heaven in the first two days. Torn dupattas, battered ribs and injured security guards were some of the damages suffered at the Sana and Safinaz lawn exhibition. It exhausted Frieha Altaf, the event’s organizer, as she tried to contain the crowds. It also gave Sana Safinaz’s detractors a chance to jealously point out that the exhibition had been ‘disorganized’. But, more than anything else, it made designers and textile mills sit up and realize the hype and profits that could be generated through lawn suits with a designer name attached to them.
Not that Sana Safinaz’s lawn merely had its designer association to its credit. The duo, with their years of lawn-designing experience, was well aware of what women would want to buy. Last year’s three-piece suits included satin borders, extra fabric for panels and flared kurtas, pure chiffon dupattas and embroideries. It was ‘luxury lawn’ back when there was not much of a concept of lawn add-ons. Now, of course, every lawn brand is vying for the luxury lawn category but they’re only just following the precedents set by Sana Safinaz in the past few years. Sana and Safinaz’s gorgeous add-ons were available at competitive prices last year and the women went gibbering, raving mad for them. This year, they have been just as eager.
Nevertheless, when I meet up with the duo two weeks prior to the exhibition, they are mulling over the competition they’ll be facing this time around. “Buyers have a lot of choice, I hope our exhibition goes well,” says Sana.
But, I ask them, don’t you think you have a loyal customer-base who will buy your clothes regardless of the competition? “We hope so,” Safinaz says. “The lawn brands in the market so far may not have a lot of innovation in their line-ups but still, they’ve certainly pulled out all stops in order to garner sales, may it be through glamorous Bollywood actresses or a brand ambassador or the hoopla of a grand launch. Yes, we did well last year but you never know. You could be really successful one year and plummet down the very next.”
Although I doubt that they are in any danger of having their popularity plummeting, this is what defines Sana and Safinaz, Pakistan’s unmistakable lawn doyennes. They’re very good at what they do but at the same time, are unbelievably humble about it. 20 years ago, they began designing because they enjoyed it and they’re still here because of their love for fashion. Their passion and innate talent is what makes their creations work but they’d rather not blow their own trumpet. As Safinaz succinctly puts it, “We don’t need to beat a drum to make people see our work. If it is good, they’ll notice it without the fanfare.”
It is this grace and talent that makes them one of Pakistani fashion’s foremost designer duos, may it be in the field of prêt and diffusion wear, bridals or, fashion’s current favorite, lawn.
Guerilla warfare!
But not everybody is as eager to pay accolades to the designer duo. A lot of money has been poured into the lawn market this year and yet, even heavily advertised exhibitions have drawn in lackluster sales. I have seen many a customer leave a lawn exhibition hall empty-handed, declaring that since lawn prices had risen, she’d rather restrict her lawn purchasing to the upcoming Sana Safinaz exhibition. This can’t possibly be making lawn investors happy and their jealousy has come out in childish, underhanded ways.
For instance, since two weeks prior to the Sana Safinaz lawn exhibition, rumors have been floating around that this year’s lawn range is going to be exorbitantly expensive. It has taken the duo’s PR team, the staff at Frieha Altaf’s Catalyst, aback. “These are ploys to dissuade people from going to the exhibition altogether,” complains a Catalyst staff member. “These tactics are being used specifically against the Sana Safinaz label; none of the other major lawns had to face such negative publicity when they launched.”
However, while the PR team at Catalyst frets and fumes, Sana and Safinaz remain unfazed. “We are used to all this,” says Safinaz. “Even last year, people spread false rumors that our lawn would be over-priced. The people behind these rumors are just jealous because we have proven ourselves to be the best designer lawn label in Pakistan and there’s nothing they can do about it. But our regular buyers know that our lawns were very competitively priced last year, as they are this year.” And with this, she shrugs off the obvious attempts at sabotaging a lawn exhibition that she and Sana have been toiling over for the past year. The world may try to bring them down through false rumors but far be it for Sana and Safinaz to resort to mudslinging.
However, what does have both designers riled up is plagiarism of their work. A design team that worked under them over the past year was fired and was immediately taken up by a big clothing mill. Lo and behold, two designs belonging to the duo’s export line have now been reproduced in the mill’s latest lawn collection. “They haven’t even tried to change the designs a bit,” says Safinaz. “The border that they copied is completely my own creation and I feel hurt that they have copied it so completely and taken all the credit for themselves.”
“This is why we have always opted to do all our designing on our own,” laments Sana. “Yes, it gets exhausting, especially since we’re not just designing our furniture, bridal, prêt and lawn lines but also dealing with the company’s administration. But at least our designs don’t get lifted off before they’re even released into the market. This was one, rare time that we had decided to take on a design team and as a result, now we have to deal with outright plagiarism.”
Typically, they are reluctant to name the mill that has ripped off their designs so audaciously. “What’s the point?” reasons Safinaz. “They may be able to copy our work for now, but soon, we’ll have innovated and moved on to something new. Then, with no genuine talent to make them go ahead, they’ll be left with the old designs.”
But while they may profess to be undeterred by the plagiarism, it does frustrate them sometimes. “It would be great if people would occasionally come up with something original rather than rip off our designs,” says Safinaz. “Even look at the recent spate of lawn brands that have entered the market. I was the one who first came up with the silk border, sold as an add-on with a three-piece suit, but now every lawn collection has silk borders. For the longest time, we haven’t been excited by anyone else’s work except our own. There’s no one to compete with other than ourselves!”
Lawn queens
Then again, their originality and expertise make Sana and Safinaz who they are. And while others may vie to become as successful as them, the duo have the experience of 20 long years in the fashion fraternity to coast them to higher heights. They have women flying in from all over Pakistan to buy their furnishings and bridals and across the border, the uber-rich Mrs Mukesh Ambani was recently seen wearing one of their outfits. Last year, they were also featured in Indian Vogue which declared them a ‘huge hit’.
“I think our partnership has grown and lasted because we have a mutual relationship of friendship and respect. The financial considerations come much later,” explains Safinaz. “We usually see eye-to-eye and when we don’t, we give each other the space to pursue our own personal aesthetics. Besides, Sana is my sister-in-law and I think that aspect of our relationship only makes our friendship stronger.”
Initially, they had started off with prêt and diffusion and then quickly progressed to bridals, furnishings and lastly, lawn. They first joined hands with Al-Karam textiles. Then, a few years later, came Firdous lawn and finally, in the years before they launched out on their own, they worked under the Lakhany Silk Mills banner. “Working for a textile mill actually makes things easy for designers. They are just part of the designing process. The mill takes care of all the nitty-gritties, the administration, organizing of exhibitions and losses, if any, that are incurred,” says Sana. “I think we are, at present, the only designers who are bringing out their own lawn. We’re not working for a mill - the mills are, in fact, producing fabric for us! And while we don’t regret it for a second, the administrative work involved does get exhausting sometimes.”
But while the nitty-gritties may trouble them, in their second year as lawn entrepreneurs, they’re very quickly learning the ropes. Last year, the exhibition venues in both Karachi and Lahore turned out to be too small to contain the huge crowds that turned up at their exhibition. “We hadn’t expected such an enthusiastic response,” explains Safinaz. This year, they aren’t holding an exhibition in Lahore, distributing directly to retail stores instead. In Karachi, their exhibition venue, the Expo Centre, is not only very capacious but is also strategically close to the Gulistan-e-Johar and Nazimabad areas. There are plenty of lawn-loving women in every area of Karachi but many aren’t able to travel all the way to Defence and Clifton, where most lawn exhibitions have taken place this year. By placing themselves at the Expo, Sana and Safinaz have cleverly made their lawn readily available to women all over the city.
Besides, while they may occasionally be bogged down by administrative details, it’s still worth being their own investors in the lawn business. After all, why let the mills rake in profits when they, on their own, can be a phenomenal, money-spinning success? There are other designers, also, who have been lending their name and expertise to different mills for many years. But, last year, Sana and Safinaz took a step that no one else has had the courage to take yet. They could have incurred losses but they decided to take the risk and look where it got them.
Today, fellow designer Rizwan Beyg calls them the ‘queens’ of the lawn business. And it’s true. Sana and Safinaz have emerged the victors time and again in all their ventures - and the lawn business is no different. People may float rumors about them and frantically try to out-advertise them, but there’s really no getting past their knack for innovation and designing. And while the lawn wars continue - with nefarious politics and mud-slinging at play - Sana and Safinaz with grace, hard work and expertise to their credit, will surely manage to glide high above it all, unscathed, on the wings of their inevitable success.
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