Bollywood beckons Samee

Karachi-based fashion designer Faiza Samee is keen on designing for Bollywood. Samee is one

of the few Pakistani fashion designers to dress up former prime minister Benazir Bhutto for her wedding. A connoisseur of traditional stitches and embroideries and an expert at recreating them, she first visited India in 1996 to participate in a SAARC Expo. She has showcased her designs with the likes of Rohit Bal and Rina Dhaka and has done numerous shows both in Pakistan and India. Having stepped into fashion designing accidentally while doing the trousseau for her sibling’s wedding in the early 1980s, Samee has had no formal training.

Based in Karachi, Samee has showcased her work at the Victoria and Albert Museums in London and the Royal Museum of Scotland. When she started out, Pakistan didn’t have much of a fashion industry. Now it has two fashion weeks, in Lahore and Karachi and the community of designers is large. She rues the fact that Pakistani designers don’t do business in India through regular trade routes but spend a lot of money sending their clothes via Dubai. In the process even the governments lose out.