Fashion Passions

Recently, the comedian and writer Sami Shah tweeted the following image, accompanying the visuals with the line 'My gift to anyone who tries telling you that fashion in Pakistan should be taken seriously' :

I know this snub has probably enraged all the fashionistas out there, especially those who never tire of telling us how fashionpromotesourculture, how fashioninvolvesbloodsweatandtears, how fashioncanincreaseourexports and how fashionisfightingtheTaliban. But I would submit there's another reason why fashion is not taken seriously by anyone outside the fashionistas' charmed circle or at least certainly not as seriously as they hope it is taken: fashion journalism.

I personally have nothing against fashion designers per se. Some of them can be quite creative at what they do, everyone's got to make a living somehow and most people wear clothes and like nice clothes, even when they can't afford them. It's the fact that commodotized fashion seems to have subsumed every other bit of 'culture' - rather like a giant amoeba plunking its big fat cellular arse over anything of nutrient value and phagocytosisizing it - in the social / cultural / entertainment pages of our newspapers and magazines that I have a problem with. When a society begins to think of good looking people walking up and down ramps as the height of a cultural event, that society's got a problem, Taliban or no Taliban.

Take a look at the pages of our newspapers and you would think there's no higher achievement than a lawn exhibition here or a trade show there (and by God! there are a lot of them) and no greater creativity than the shaping of eyebrows and application of eye-shadow. Forget the advertising onslaught that crowds out city horizons and media space, copious editorial verbiage is dedicated to dissecting the latest twist of a paisley, the half-an-inch raising of a hemline, the ideological differences between the Pakistan Fashion Week, the Fashion Pakistan Week, the Fashion Showcase and the Pakistan Fashion Design Council Week (which of course reminds one of this). But perhaps it might even be somewhat bearable if there was actually any 'dissection' at all. No, the default characteristic of most fashion writing in Pakistan is to 'extol', as if the amoeba's life depended on it, and the position of writers on fashion more akin to phagocytosisized groupies than dispassionate journalists.

Consider what appeared in today's Instep pages in The News for example (by no means the only instance or the only space where such writing appears)...

Here's a box item that pretty much tells us all we need to know in the headline: that designers Hassan Sheheryar Yasin (of HSY) and Shehla Chatoor won awards for their designing at two separate fashion weeks. But then continues for four paragraphs of waffle that includes the following bit of purple prose:

"It’s the glamour of high fashion, the need for something new and the innovation of these designers that has won over the hearts of the voting public. The influence of fashion is breaking borders within the Pakistani public’s mindset. The imposing façade of designer fashion has been lifted and the opinion of the majority has softened the hard line which divided people’s views of fashion as elitist and unattainable. It’s the display of talent and the celebration of beautiful design which the public voted for by way of Shehla Chatoor and Hassan Sheheryar Yasin."

But for real overblown hype you must turn to the main article. A report on Day 4 of the PFDC Sunsilk Fashion Week, it is headlined, in faux deep analysis tone, 'Showmanship, the spirit of fashion and understanding the difference.' The article begins by gushing the following adjectives and phrases about HSY and his clothes: 'most magnificent', 'grand', 'divine', 'gorgeous', 'sexy' and concluding that 'the man is a wiz.'

And that's for a designer the writer claims was not as "exciting fashion-wise" as the others.

For the others and their shows, the following words and phrases are then deployed: 'king and queen', 'exquisitely tailored', 'gorgeous' (again), 'raging hit', 'great', 'masterstroke', 'panache', 'flawless', 'super hit', 'equally brilliant', 'wizard', 'hottest', 'new heights', 'such talent', 'brilliance' (again), 'brightest', 'most cutting edge', 'to die for', 'rollicking collection', 'fashion met art', 'one-of-a-kind', 'collector's item' and 'painstakingly perfect.' Well, at least you know that a thesaurus might be the best gift to get the author.

Seriously, if any other 'beat' carried this type of writing, it would be accused of being dangerously naive and simply promotional advertising rather than journalism. How can anyone then take fashion without a healthy heaping of salt?

The article ends with an exhortation:

“Let’s try something that hasn’t been done before.”

Not to put too fine a point on it, but yes, why don't we.

No Jokes Please, We're Fashionable

Pakistanis, in general, have little tolerance for satire about themselves. That is why political humour programmes on television usually have to preface their episodes with a disclaimer, labeling them clearly as satire and not to be taken seriously. But of all Pakistanis perhaps none are as dour, humourless and self-righteous as members of the fashion 'fraternity' (let's just say this fraternity is no Animal House). For all their claims of 'playfulness' and 'fun' in their designs, they are one acidic and sour lot when at the receiving end of even good-natured ribbing.

Witness the indignant response to Express Tribune's rather funny April 1st joke on its Lifestyle pages. ET's April Fool prank 'broke' the news that the Lahore-based Pakistan Fashion Design Council (PFDC) and the Karachi-based Fashion Pakistan (FP) - often roundly criticized for making their own daerrh eenth ki masjidein - were to merge, and carried fake quotes from prominent designers welcoming the move.

The joke that went over the fashionistas' head

Ms Sehyr Saigol, the chairperson of PFDC, Saad Ali, the CEO of PFDC and Amir Adnan, CEO of FP, then decided to fire off this letter published in ET today:

The letter reads:

"We, the Pakistan Fashion Design Council (PFDC), Fashion Pakistan (FP) and Libas International, are writing to you in complaint of the false story published in The Express Tribune’s Life & Style Pages dated April 1, 2011.

We take strong exception to the false, incorrect, baseless, inaccurate statements and information based on conjectures and surmises, supported by statements of renowned industry personalities, which have been reported as established facts without soliciting our, or indeed anyone’s, confirmation as to the authenticity or veracity of the contents published in the aforesaid story.

This story is misleading and, in fact, represents a complete falsification of material. It also used and distorts a logo (of Libas International) without the consent of the logo copyright holder (Sehyr Saigol), infringing copyright and intellectual property rights therein.

Further, the story published has portrayed us as non-law abiding citizens and has exposed us to the threat of possible legal action by falsely reporting that the PFDC and FP are merging.

Amir Adnan (CEO of FP), Sehyr Saigol (Chairperson of the PFDC), Kamiar Rokni (member of the executive committee of the PFDC) and Hassan Sheheryar Yasin (member of the executive committee of the PFDC) shall hold your newspaper liable for any consequential damage to their reputation, and would like to strongly establish herewith that any and all information attributed to their names within this piece is false and a misrepresentation of fact and of their nature.

It is disappointing that a well-reputed newspaper such as yours has overlooked ethics and relevant laws, especially those pertaining to libel, and has published this story. We demand that you tender an apology to all the parties misrepresented and misquoted herewith and publish the same, along with a retraction of all misinformation and misquotations.

Sehyr Saigol
PFDC chairperson (executive committee) and publisher, Libas International
Saad Ali
CEO PFDC,
Amir Adnan
CEO, FP"

You just can't make this shit up. Not only do the we-take-ourselves-so-seriously authors not exhibit the slightest clue that the piece in question was quite obviously a prank (if nothing else, the organogram that posited that the 'bad boy of fashion journalism' Mohsin Sayeed would be the new 'Chairperson for Life' in the new set-up might have provided a clue to anyone with half a brain), or show any circumspection about the date of publication, do not miss the self-righteous threats of legal action and claims of 'damage to their reputations'. After this patently idiotic letter, you may well wonder, what reputations? Certainly none involving a sense of humour it would be safe to say.

The self-righteous leading lights of fashion also obviously don't even regularly read anything beyond what is sent to them as a clipping. The very next day after the joke, i.e. on April 2, ET had in fact published this story clarifying things for the dimwitted. So, just to reiterate, the poor ET editor had to publish the following clarification once again in response to the letter:

Say it slowly, in bold type, they're not the sharpest scissors in the drawer

I can sympathise with ET completely on this one. Instead of tacking regrets on to that clarification, it must have taken a lot of restraint from the editor not to have said where he probably really wanted the fashionistas to put their letter. But I guess he didn't want to take on people who have single-handedly defeated the Taliban.