Daily Times

KARACHI: For 10 years, the Fashion Pakistan Council (FPC) has been committed to fostering the business of fashion in Pakistan.

It was to promote the country’s fashion industry that the Fashion Pakistan Week (FPW) platform was created. FPW has now become a biannual event that has sought to represent the finest designing aesthetics that the country has to offer, placing Pakistan on the global map and providing infrastructure to a nascent fashion industry.

Simultaneously, the Council has always recognised the importance of mentoring and guiding promising newcomers hoping to make a mark in fashion. To this end, senior FPC members have nurtured some very talented young designers, giving them the opportunity to debut at FPW before embarking on their careers.

With this in mind, the FPC has chosen to postpone the third day of FPW, in which budding designers will be a given a special platform to showcase their creations. So now, the new dates for FPW Spring/Summer 2017 are February 22-23, 2017. The event will feature some of the country’s most illustrious labels.

Showcases by younger labels will be set aside for the millennial show scheduled to take place later this year. Senior designers including those from the FPC board will guide the young designers into creating their collections. Following the show, deserving participants will be awarded scholarships and included in a mentorship programme that will help them with payments of their fees. They will also be allowed free participation slots at FPW.

In an additional effort to propel the growth of fashion, the Council will be dedicating a segment at FPW to designs that incorporate sustainable craft.

The designer line-up scheduled to take part in FPW includes Ayesha Farook Hashwani, Inaaya, Nida Azwer, Zaheer Abbas, Humayun Alamgir, Fnk Asia, Amir Adnan, Tena Durrani, Amato, Deepak Perwani, Xoria Dor, Jeem by Hamza Bokhari, Munib Nawaz, Sonya Battla, The Pink Tree Company, Gulabo, Bunto Kazmi, Shamaeel Ansari, HSY, Umar Sayeed, Sana Safinaz, Nomi Ansari and Nilofer Shahid.

The show direction and choreography will be handled by Frieha Altaf.

The event will be taking place in collaboration with Urdu1 as the official event and media partner.