Dressing up for love

LAHORE: Come February 14 and every store in town gets painted a deep hue of red. From cheesy heart-shaped balloons to red buntings, with love in the air, and with a greater awareness of Valentine’s Day, each store and label prepares to catch up by producing collections that are in line for the season of love. There is something for everyone to cash in on this Valentine’s Day.

So whether it is Nomi Ansari sending out red-coloured Valentine mugs to his clients, friends and the media, Fashion Pakistan Lounge is holding a whopping 70 per cent off red carpet sale, Gulabo offering a five per cent on their red and pink designs or Labels introducing its gift vouchers for the first time, the fashion industry has geared up to make their benefactors feel special this Valentine’s with multiple incentives to spur spending by offering red collections in their stores for clients to bloom in the colour of love.

Ammar Belal, in his true creative style, has done up his shop windows at the design emporium in red with mannequins adorning red tee shirts with cute Valentine’s Day sayings on them. Always trying to push artistic boundaries, Belal got his designer pals to design pieces in red for the most daring of all men.

Another fashion maverick, Omar Farooq of Republic has gone all out in bringing products from Italy for his clientele. The Valentine’s Day collection by Republic features red sweaters and shirts, and even office durables like file covers, card holders, and planners for the store’s corporate clientele. For the young at heart, Republic has done a line of graphic tee shirts with a heart wrapped around in safety pins. “We hope that people will perceive this symbolic heart image in unique enigmatic ways,” said Farooq, the creative director of the brand.

The epitome of sophistication, Elan was also pressured to create something for the cupid season. “We never thought we would do a Valentine’s line,” said Khadija Shah of Elan. “But people have been demanding us to make us clothes. We did our popular designs in formal red chiffons and embellishment, all below Rs30,000. These are wardrobe staples that will do well otherwise as well,” stated Shah.

The designer retail store Ensemble has been holding events at their outlets in Lahore and Karachi to launch their spring collections. At their flagship store in Karachi, there are special offers for the store itself as well as their in-house salon. This year the store has also signed up with Lal’s chocolates and Cookie’s cupcakes with special promotions that give women benefits for shopping at Ensemble.  “For a lot of guys it is so difficult to shop for women. Clothes are a great bet but women mostly don’t like their husbands’ tastes so we are offering gift vouchers of varying amounts starting at Rs5,000,” explained Shernaz Hussain of Ensemble.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 14^th, 2011.