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