NISAR LONDON

I cannot say that I have always wanted to become a fashion designer but my current ambition draws its origins from childhood experiences and I did not figure it out as a potential career for me until later. My family wanted me pushedpto become a doctor so I entered high school to study science. My conversion to the arts, against my family’s wishes, arose during my science college time when I visited the National College of Art (NCA) in Lahore, Pakistan. Until my trip, I never knew it existed. Behind its tall brick walls and guarded gates, I saw sculptors, painters, architects and a range of designers in a place of learning with gallery after gallery of work that excited me. Through that experience, I can remember realising then that it was art and design not medicine that I wanted to learn.

I identified their textile design degree as the most interesting although architecture seemed quite interesting too.  The selection panel offered me a place after they saw my biology illustrations; they were all I had to offer as a portfolio. Textiles appealed because I always loved fabrics, their patterns and textures. 

NCA was a protected oasis of daring innovation protected from conservative beliefs dominant outside its walls. Within its relative freedoms I flourished, graduating with a BA with honours but I came to realise that designing printed and woven fabrics alone did not satisfy me. The college exposed me to an international world of fashion, art and architecture and through this contact, though remote from the world it came from, I started to shape an ambition to design clothing stimulated by a teacher of mine. 

Pakistan had very few opportunities in clothing design and fashion tastes are culturally limited so for a while, I was stuck with an unrequited passion for fashion innovation, eagerly browsing old issues of western fashion magazines sold cheaply by weight. Knowing my ambition but with opportunities in Pakistan too limited, I saved my pay and made a big decision to move alone to the UK to further my textile studies and seek opportunities here. I worked again in fabric design and completed technical courses in sewing, drapery and pattern cutting. 

I visualize designs that marry cultures East and West and I hope my portfolio illustrates this. Hardly any Pakistani designer has a globally known name and I want to prove that I am capable of blending traditions to produce pioneering designs that would earn me a name in an exciting if demanding trade. 

My collections consist of conceptual pieces which has message and protest against the in-equality and corruption of the system. I use calligraphy (embroidered and print), military clothing references and traditional women clothing from both strict Muslim and openminded western cultures. My collections have the elements of tailoring, political messages, refined deconstruction, sculptural shapes and it is over all dark.