Thaindian News

By Shilpa Raina
New Delhi, April 27 (IANS) He has dressed up the likes of Hamid Karzai, Pervez Musharraf, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and was one of the first designers to establish himself in Pakistan. But Amir Adnan feels even now Pakistanis are conservative when it comes to fashion.

“Pakistanis in general are a conservative lot. They are not very adventurous in terms of silhouettes or harsh colour combination. They stick to classic styling with outline cut and emphasis on quality of workmanship and fabric,” Adnan told IANS in an e-mail interview.

“Indians, on the other hand, I find, are more experimental and have an appetite for innovative restructuring but are less quality conscious,” he added.

Adnan, who has now shifted his base to Dubai, had launched his label “Amir Adnan” way back in 1990 - a time when fashion designing was not considered a profession.

Recollecting his struggling days, Adnan said: “When I started off, people did not consider fashion designing as a profession, especially for a male. I had to generate a solid number in sales to convince people that what I was doing was a good option.”

“When I started off there was no fashion week, no regularised channel for promotion of fashion. I had to do exhibitions to communicate to people and struggle to get photo shoots published in magazines to put forth my design philosophy.”

After those difficult years, Adnan’s designs have spoken for themselves and slowly and steadily, the brand found its way into people’s closets all around the globe.

Best known for re-inventing the sherwani, Adnan describes it as an extremely elegant outfit and says it is the pinnacle of formal dressing for men in Pakistan.

Having dressed up men like former Indian prime minister Vajpayee, ex-Pakistan president Musharraf, Afghanistan President Karzai, former Pakistani prime minister Shaukat Aziz and Hollywood star Jermaine Jackson, the designer feels the secret to this clientele is that his clothes are elegant, sober, conservative and yet stylish.

“The experience of making clothes for celebrities is always exciting. Surprisingly, they all have one thing in common - they match the appearance of their garment with their personal aura. Once they find the match, they go out to own a piece of your work.

“In my case, when I did a sherwani for Vajpayee, Karzai or Musharraf, my design naturally matched their persona. The same thing happened with Amitabh Bachchan when I gifted him a shalwar kurta on his birthday,” he added.

But Adnan feels India menswear is not up to the mark yet.

“More work has gone to the glamorous side of fashion which is naturally inclined towards women. The other factor in India is Bollywood, which acts as a catalyst for a lot of industry, including fashion, because of which clothing is more glamour-oriented than quality whereas men generally go for quality,” said Adnan.

He, however, feels Indian fashion is poised to have its presence felt in the mainstream international market.

“By this I don’t mean ‘made in India’ but ’style as India’. Indian fashion has managed to promote itself to such an extent that now big labels are incorporating India as an inspiration in their collection which is a big achievement,” said Adnan.

So any Bollywood celebrity he would like to design for?

“Aamir Khan,” says Adnan.

(Shilpa Raina can be contacted at shilpa.r@ians.in)