Powder-blue walls, hand-painted ballerina figures and neatly assembled racks, ready for a day’s business, greet you as you enter Mariyam D Rizwan’s newly opened store in Karachi. You get a sense of the artist in the young designer, reaffirmed when she confides, “All of the artwork you see in the store has been done by me.”
FashionForward
Upcoming designer Mariyam D. Rizwan takes the artistic road to fashion as she opens her flagship store in Karachi
It is believed that an aesthetic sense takes a fairly long time to develop, but that cannot be said for the artiste and budding designer, Mariyam D. Rizwan. She was introduced to art from a very early age, which is why she chose to pursue a career in a creative field.
“I absolutely love to paint, I’ve been painting since I was a child,” Rizwan shares, as she welcomes me inside her newly built flagship-store com studio.
However, Mariyam’s career in fashion wasn’t very thought-out. With a bachelor’s degree in Textile Design from Chelsea College of Art & Design London and a post grad course from Central Saint Martins London, she actually started off with an undergrad in interior designing but it didn’t exactly pique her interest.
“It was just too dry.”
She then took up courses in pattern-making from Institute Français de la Mode PARIS, before working her way through to leading fashion houses such as H&M, Alexander McQueen and Ted Baker for internships.
“Our final thesis project was actually collaborated with H&M. So the final show was to be used for Spring/Summer 2013. They were coming in and grading us and that’s how it was all linked.”
She notes that although plugging in theories, learnt at foreign design-school, into the Pakistani context wasn’t too easy, she has managed to conjure prêt and luxury prêt collections that would appeal to women coming in from different socio-cultural dynamics.
“Hoop skirts and gowns is still my target market, but I do try to tone it down a bit. I want to cater to the market and demand coming in by tweaking around my designs.”
While surveying her store, you get a sense of where she’s coming from, evident in the edgy fusion of Eastern wear and Western silhouettes, psychedelic and ethnic printed tunics and sharp shouldered jackets. You can’t miss the voluminous evening-gowns that make a statement of their own. What works in her favour here is how she has made extensive use of her own art-work, be it watercolour, pen or marker painting and sketches to customize her own, exclusive range of patterns and prints.
“I’m very detail-oriented, I always want to have things my way, which kind of works both to my benefit and disadvantage.”
What sets Mariyam D. Rizwan apart is her zealous nature and the ability to convert her canvas into luscious, rich and curvaceous silhouettes. She wishes to gain more expertise in juxtaposing her art work with innovative and cutting edge outfits that would not only cater to women of all ages but also to all sorts of shapes and sizes.
Interestingly enough, her only hopes now are to take things forward. “There’s a long, long way to go,” she admits. “There are so many things I’m learning every day, but I’d definitely want to take my work to London.”
– Photography by Kashif-ud-Din
