The Many Sides of Pakistan’s Fashion Industry

Annam Lod­hi of The Laal­tain Team probes into Pak­istan fash­ion industry’s inter­nal prob­lems faced espe­cial­ly by the new­com­ers.

No one can deny the allure of fame. With it comes glitz and glam­our, a chance to bask in the lime­light — sure­ly a dream come true for many.

An obvi­ous choice for those who desire to attain all this is the media indus­try – a world of fash­ion, film, TV, mod­el­ing and pho­tog­ra­phy. In Pak­istan, where the indus­try is quite small, only a few peo­ple stand at the helm of the media empire.

The mod­el­ing indus­try has recent­ly gained much pop­u­lar­i­ty amongst the youth, but some would say that behind all the glam­our also lies a dark­er world of secrets, lies, revenge, abuse and envy. A world like quick­sand that dis­solves once it is embraced. The com­plaints of many young peo­ple lead us to won­der why such a thriv­ing indus­try is so thor­ough­ly hat­ed.

We inter­viewed sev­er­al new­com­ers as well as some estab­lished artists on their point of view on the indus­try.

Some enthu­si­as­tic female uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents claimed that being in the spot­light would be like a dream come true, but if they were asked to take part in any­thing uneth­i­cal they would refuse. Many were of the opin­ion that mod­el­ing is a career choice for those who are not edu­cat­ed, although some point­ed out that edu­cat­ed mod­els have now start­ed enter­ing the indus­try, which is a pos­i­tive sign as it could lead to the reju­ve­na­tion of moral val­ues. The new mod­el­ing, film and TV schools that have cropped up can play a vital part in devel­op­ing Pakistan’s fledg­ling indus­try.

An A lev­el grad­u­ate said “I per­son­al­ly don’t like the pro­fes­sion of mod­el­ing. I real­ly don’t think that any girl should be involved in it, and not for reli­gious rea­sons, but because I don’t think she should be stared at by all sorts of peo­ple while she walks up and down the aisle for them, dressed in all sorts of clothes, just for the sake of pro­mot­ing some­one else’s ideas on her body.”

Anoth­er guy who has tried his luck in the indus­try said: “I think that mod­el­ing in Pak­istan is much tougher for men. Women are allowed entry eas­i­ly, while men have to strug­gle real­ly hard as com­pared to the Amer­i­can, British and Indi­an mod­el­ing indus­tries. Anoth­er rea­son for this is that often senior mod­els don’t want junior mod­els to join this indus­try”.

The major­i­ty of peo­ple who enter this pro­fes­sion belong to the 18–22 year age cat­e­go­ry, from both mid­dle and upper class fam­i­lies. And almost all of them are aware of the chal­lenges that lie ahead for them in this field. Tariq Taqi – a mod­el and actor who has been in the indus­try for the past 11 years, con­firmed this when he recalled how he had to strug­gle through his teenage years to get to where he is today.

New­com­ers also talk about how they have to pay agen­cies to get them good projects. Muham­mad Usman (mod­el­ing for the past 2 years) said “Pho­tog­ra­phers often ask us to pay them just for the shoots until we get work, but even if you do some projects they claim they nev­er got paid and so they can’t pay you. They keep doing this, and if you are final­ly tired and want to leave they will pay just to have you stay. They do need us, but they are very sharp in not mak­ing it obvi­ous.”

The many prob­lems faced by new­com­ers do not stop here. They are often giv­en a rough time by being forced to indulge in inde­cent activ­i­ties, not com­fort­able or suit­able for most. “Com­pro­mise,” says Usman “is what many big names want from you in the indus­try”. Tariq Taqi also con­firms this: “If a per­son is ori­ent­ed the oth­er way, to him his life and to me mine, but the pres­sure to be like them or to com­pro­mise with their needs is hor­rid. I am a man and I would like to stay that way, forc­ing me to ful­fill their needs won’t work with me.”

Homo­sex­u­als dom­i­nate many areas of the indus­try. The prob­lem does not arise from their being at the helm, but from the harass­ment some straight peo­ple claim to have faced in order to be giv­en a break.

“If they want you to com­pro­mise you have to, but that only hap­pens in Pak­istan. When I went to Bangkok a man approached me say­ing he is inter­est­ed, and I told him I’m not. He behaved per­fect­ly nor­mal­ly with me after that. How­ev­er, if some­one in Pak­istan were to do the same and I refused, he would auto­mat­i­cal­ly devel­op enmi­ty towards me.

“But the prob­lem with today’s gen­er­a­tion is that they are will­ing to do any­thing to get ahead in the indus­try. Peo­ple should stand up and say no if they are asked to do unrea­son­able things. We all need to stand up and be unit­ed.” says an ago­nized Taqi.

A prob­lem that we faced repeat­ed­ly while com­pil­ing data for this arti­cle was that female mod­els were quite reluc­tant to speak open­ly. Per­haps many of them feared that tak­ing a stance would have a neg­a­tive impact on their careers. Some claimed that since the indus­try is cur­rent­ly run by peo­ple not inter­est­ed in women they actu­al­ly feel quite com­fort­able in their pro­fes­sion and are large­ly saved from harass­ment.

There has been a recent leg­is­la­tion against sex­u­al harass­ment, but as Haseeb, a law stu­dent and fresh mod­el, said “there are a thou­sand and one cas­es cur­rent­ly pend­ing in the courts, you would have to wait for­ev­er for your turn to come. It’s not like we don’t want to speak out but prov­ing harass­ment isn’t easy.”

In addi­tion to all of this, there is a great amount of peer pres­sure, which in many cas­es leads to an addic­tion to drugs and alco­hol. The con­stant empha­sis on main­tain­ing a per­fect fig­ure dri­ves many to extreme lifestyles that have led to an array of health issues. Although this is sel­dom high­light­ed in the media, behind the lay­ers of make­up mod­els rou­tine­ly bat­tle with bulim­ia, anorex­ia and hyper­ten­sion.

And then there are the pow­er games. Ailar Ersha­di said in a 2010 inter­view “I wish peo­ple wouldn’t team up so much here. It’s too small an indus­try for peo­ple to cre­ate groups and indulge in so many per­son­al attacks. They will all learn from each oth­er if they stop mak­ing these cliques. They should also go to oth­er coun­tries and work under pro­fes­sion­als abroad.”

Very lit­tle seems to have changed in the past two years; the game is the same, even though the names might have changed. The big bees of the indus­try have the pow­er to make or break a newcomer’s career.

Jeal­ousy dri­ves many peo­ple too. Sam­i­na Azh­har said in an inter­view to a pop­u­lar paper “The indus­try is filled with jeal­ous and inse­cure peo­ple who back­bite”. How­ev­er, Tariq Taqi also men­tions that “Some peo­ple are very pro­fes­sion­al; they are only con­cerned with work. Work­ing with them is a treat and we need more peo­ple like them in the indus­try.”

Mohsin Say­eed, a fash­ion jour­nal­ist for more than 25 years, has a total­ly dif­fer­ent take on these issues. “Sex, drugs, harass­ment etc. pre­vail in almost all pro­fes­sions in Pak­istan. Fash­ion indus­try comes into lime­light only because it is a soft tar­get, ear­li­er the same used to be said about oth­er arts like paint­ing, writ­ing, and poet­ry.” Say­eed argues. When asked about com­plaints of the new­com­ers, he says, “These alle­ga­tions are total­ly unfound­ed and most­ly used to mask one’s incom­pe­tence. Like oth­er fields of art, fash­ion indus­try demands cre­ativ­i­ty, hard work and con­sis­ten­cy. When you look close­ly, you will find that fash­ion is a tough job and is not as glam­orous as it is thought.”

Fash­ion is a way of express­ing cre­ativ­i­ty, and the busi­ness of fash­ion is not only about great style and pret­ty mod­els but a mul­ti-dimen­sion­al enter­prise involv­ing many peo­ple, each mak­ing their con­tri­bu­tion to the big­ger pic­ture.

The edu­cat­ed class needs to come for­ward and dri­ve the indus­try in a way where true tal­ent can be appre­ci­at­ed. The fash­ion indus­try show­cas­es Pak­istan the world over; it has played the role of devel­op­ing a great image of our coun­try as a styl­ish and cre­ative one. If such prob­lems pre­vail in this impor­tant sec­tor, the image could be tar­nished eas­i­ly.

Pub­lished in The Laal­tain — April 2013 Issue