IFAP: The real picture

Will the recently launched academy be able to stay afloat?

LAHORE:

While one admits that there is a critical need for a training institute cum finishing school in the country, certain features of the recently launched International Fashion Academy Pakistan (IFAP) make one wonder if the project will manage to stay afloat.

For one, the CEO Mehreen Syed, despite being strikingly beautiful, does not quite represent the ‘ideal’ model, particularly in this day and age where there is pressure for a professional to be more than just their basic job description. In a country like Pakistan, where there is a dearth of icons, it becomes even more crucial for the handful of talent — that gets projection — to become a multifaceted star. Syed, unfortunately, doesn’t meet the mark. A comparison with other models is only fair — for instance Meesha Shafi, who is not only a style icon, a brand ambassador for Loreal, a sultry songstress and now transitioning into a film actor. Shafi represents a wholesome and heady ‘package’ that people are increasingly demanding of models now that the fashion scene has exploded with regular fashion weeks and related events.

The fashion industry is already derided for being cliquish and is notorious for its camps. So while Syed’s personal story and her close ties with Athar Shahzad is a warm and believable story, it can easily be seen as yet another instance of promoting one’s own. The absence of other fashion photographers, including Lahore’s most dynamic duo Guddu and Shani, fashion’s hottest name Faisal Farooqi of Dragonfly (not to mention Tapu Javeri from Karachi), lends more credence then to this camp culture.

Furthermore, the fact that the syllabus outlined in the IFAP handbook mentions ‘punctuality’ under the title of ‘Mannerisms’ and the press conference started a whopping two hours late -without any justification or clarification — demonstrates an unforgiving nonchalance. With faculty members casually sauntering in with brazen indifference to time, it negatively impacts IFAP’s image which could have earned some brownie points for being ‘an academy with a difference’ had the event started on time.

Also, a vital rule of professionalism is that people should be introduced or included in a project on the basis of their qualifications and skills and not their personal affiliations with leading authorities. In any organisation, affinity and ties should be a by-product of having worked closely together and not the other way around. Syed’s speech at the press conference appeared more geared towards thanking her friends. Had she simply stated the qualifications for each member to be chosen, it would have lent a seriousness of purpose and intent to the whole enterprise.

Although this is just a start and one wishes IFAP well, it never hurts to try to do things differently. Perhaps IFAP’s team needs to sit down and learn a thing or two and while they are at it, create an academy handbook that is well thought out and structured to define clearly its faculty’s credentials and worth. The current handbook is steeped in grammatical errors and looks like a regurgitated version of the press profiles that each faculty member’s media agency had created.

These few simple measures will lend IFAP the credibility that it desires and garner support from other media avenues, such as film and television, as well.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 4^th, 2011.