By Maliha Rehman
How often do we equate the word ‘couture’ with women’s bridals? Within Pakistan’s limited fashion-scape, it’s a word that conjures images of extravagantly detailed designs for the bride, painstakingly worked with hand-embellishments indigenous to the subcontinent.
But what does the groom wear?
More often than not, he gets relegated to a traditional sherwani that may not be as intricately designed. Often, even within the ateliers of the top-most Pakistani menswear brands, the sherwani is simply fashioned out of a glittery, machine-embroidered fabric or tailored from high-quality fabric with minimal embroidery. Even the most elaborate, fully embellished designs tend to rely on machine embroideries with some surface embellishments added by hand.
It is rare for a brand to invest into couture – handmade, detailed, the fruition of weeks of hard labor – for men. And now that one thinks of it, this is odd. A bride wants to look her best on her big day but the groom may have similar sartorial aspirations. Wouldn’t a groom want to treasure a sherwani, a luxurious hand-crafted design, and set it aside to be worn later and perhaps, passed on to his next generation at some later date?
Designer Omar Farooq of Republic Menswear possibly thought the same when he devised the capsule line Meraki about three years ago. Republic by Omar Farooq is now a brand that has been in the market for about 13 years and it has steadily attracted in a regular clientele for their men’s wedding-wear and suiting. Like most men’s brands in the market, Republic’s Eastern formals, part of the Symphony line, merge machine embroideries with hand embellishments, a technique that allows prices to be more competitive and for the designs to be created in mass numbers.
Meraki, though, walks off the beaten track. Far from the madding crowd of fast fashion bolstered by the popular usage of machine embroideries, the Eastern formals in this particular line cater to a niche clientele who appreciate the effort and artistry invested into a garment completely created by hand and are willing to pay for it. Prices are undoubtedly higher than other options in the market but the stringent quality control and time taken to create each garment is also much more.
Having said this, advancements in technology have enabled machine embroideries to be quite beautiful and even, to a certain extent, detailed. What makes a hand-embroidered piece, far more expensive than a machine-made one, so exceptional?
The beauty lies in the details and in the case of Meraki, the details are so minute that they could only have been etched out by hand. A sage green sherwani – my favorite piece from the latest Meraki lineup – for instance, has flora and filigree meshed together all over its canvas with the aid of an infinite number of delicate French knots, resham, tilla and sequins, crushed and bunched up to form 3-D patterns. The glitter of sequins is minimal, the very intricate embroideries in matte shades of green taking center stage. It’s a one-of-a-kind design, a veritable heirloom piece to be always treasured, coveted by men and even, I feel, by women with a penchant for androgynous, standout formal-wear.
This particular piece, designer Omar Farooq told me, was inspired by a hand-made kilim that had been in his family for years. “It’s a beautiful olive green carpet and it occurred to me that the same technique and aesthetic could be replicated on to fabric,” he recalled. “The notion was challenging and at the same, daunting. I wanted to achieve every single color tone and pattern using French knots and variations of them.”
He continued, “Such detailed embellishments would require time and our task became even more difficult because we had to search for skilled labor who would be willing to sit for so long to fulfill the order. Eventually, we found some artisans in Lahore and others in Karachi who we flew out to Lahore, where our production units are primarily based. I then had them literally sit in my office for six months so that I could observe every single stitch.”
“I feel that it was all worth it because we ultimately came up with a collection where every product spoke for itself and was a beautiful as I had imagined it.”
I also had the opportunity to see other pieces from the collection: sherwanis in shades that were more frequently associated with wedding-wear; ivory, gold, silver and grey. A variety of hand techniques – tilla, resham, sequins, French knots, ganga jamni, cut-daana moti – were mixed and merged into winding floral borders, paisleys and concentric bunches of lotuses.
It was all indubitably exquisite. But just as noteworthy was what the collection signified. Groomswear, often considered secondary to the demand for bridal-wear, could also be artistic, intricate, a labor of love. And in a fast-paced world where everything, including fashion, was increasingly considered disposable, the allure of a hand-created garment was still irreplaceable.
“Yes, we could have just merged machine embroideries with hand-work and created many more garments within a given time at a much lower cost,” agrees Omar, “but then, how would that differentiate Republic by Omar Farooq from all the other brands in the market? How would that make us stand out as a brand which has a local clientele as well as a global footprint that is getting stronger over time? We worked hard and we came up with a line that was so refined and now, next year, we have to try and come up with designs that are even better. From my perspective, the benchmarks I achieve end up becoming my own competition when I am coming up with a new collection the next time.”
He adds, “Every single garment tells a tale of more than a million French knots.”
It’s a poetic description and truly, couture which requires love, effort and vision can enrapture a person, make one dream and think of poetry. Pakistani fashion, though, in its current obsession for churning out mass-friendly, repetitive designs, hasn’t lately given one the chance to get poetic. It’s good, then, that for every 20 bridal-wear brands, there may be one, like Republic by Omar Farooq, still fixated with the idea of creating heirloom pieces for men and that, for every 20 generic line-ups, there may be one Meraki.
The Republic by Omar Farooq line can be accessed here:
https://www.republicbespoke.com/
What do you think?