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The SAAI Factor
.................................................................................................. By Sumeha Khalid
The talented Sahar Atif of SAAI talks to Pakistan Today about her work, life and much more! Read on! 36 I May 19, 2013
................................................................................................................................ Q: What is keeping you busy these days? What projects are you working on? A: These days the Saai Studio has been working on Chen One’s women’s wear brand Pareesa and its various collections which are being designed out of our studio and being sent into mass production at the Chenab factory. I’ve put my heart and soul into this project as I do not believe in luxury prêt. Prêt-aporter is about affordable clothing for the masses of the Pakistan and should be available nationwide. Sahar Atif’s collaboration Pareesa upholds this sensibility. We also recently participated in the PFDC Sunsilk Fashion Week 2013 which was an awesome experience! Parallel to this, I am very excited about working with a buying house in Pakistan that is developing embroideries for a huge USA home furnishing brand. I am looking forward to getting involved with this project soon. Q: Tell us about your collaboration with ChenOne on the Pareesa Lawn Collection 2013? A: Pareesa is ChenOne’s premier lawn brand and embodies style,
elegance and accessible fashion for the modern Pakistani woman. The collection showcases ChenOne’s contemporary take on the classic summer fabric and marks my second time working with the textile house and lending my design skills to help bring a high fashion aesthetic to a mass audience. Q: What do you feel differentiates Pareesa Lawn from other designer lawn collections this season? A: For one, the collection contains far more designs than any other designer lawn collection currently available in the market. The Pareesa Lawn Collection 2013 comprises 50 unique designs of which 30 have already been launched and are available at all ChenOne stores, with remaining designs scheduled for later release. Furthermore, the collection is distinct from others as it employs a unique cutwork technique crafted by female artisans indigenous to the rural Punjab, who have been empowered and provided sustainable livelihoods as a part of the Chenab group’s social outreach program. The collection also features custom prints and utilizes experimental dying both of
which are rare in commercial lawn production. Q: Where do you get inspiration for your designs? A: I don’t intentionally seek inspiration nor do I get exclusively get inspired by a revolutionary moment in time. It’s actually an ongoing process in the life of a designer. Q: What is a normal day for you like? A: My day starts very early with my children and in a very domesticated way. After the children leave, I enjoy my time to myself and start thinking of work. If I manage to start my day in such a way then I walk into the studio or the class room far more focused and ready to take action. We are a family oriented lot, so time away from home is spent at work and evenings are dedicated to the family. Q: You are a fashion designer, an entrepreneur and a teacher. How do you manage to strike a balance between professional and personal life? A: Multi-tasking is the name of the game. I normally divide the academic year in such a way that the
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pressure is neutrally balanced between home, Saai and teaching. I take my holidays very seriously because I’m very aware that it’s the fun time that keeps me charged and energized as a professional and a happy mom. Q: Your favourite designers and why? A: Helmut Lang for flawless silhouettes and tactile quality of fabrics. Q: What does it take to stay on top of your game? A: Passion! Q: If not a designer then what would you have been today? A: Ceramicist or a writer. Q: What is your personal signature style? A: Understated with a dash of spunk be it a hint of red lipstick or a striking scarf or jewellery piece. Q: Some advice you would like to share with the young, upcoming designers. A: Never forget that beneath all the glamour in the fashion business there are long, tedious hours of hard work. Q: What are your future plans? A: Just to have fun at work. It’s been great so far and it is bound to only get better!
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Books
Lost but never forgotten! Acclimatized to living a life of challenge and adventure, Safwat Ghayur died in action – ‘with his boots on’ By Syed Afsar Sajid The book is about Safwat Ghayur, an ‘inimitable, invincible and intrepid’ soul, a gentleman officer par excellence, a martyr to duty and discipline! Scion of a highly respectable family of KPK, the martyred soul was a ‘ghayur’ (proud but humble and self-respecting!) son of ex-ambassador Sardar Abdul Ghayur (a younger brother of the renowned Pakistan Movement leader Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar), cousin of engineer and ex-governor Sardar Owais Ahmad Ghani and Gen (Retd) Abdul Waheed Kakar (an ex-COAS), and brother-in-law of noted politician Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao and celebrated English poet, scholar and technocrat Ejaz Rahim. Acclimatized to living a life of challenge and adventure, Safwat died in action – ‘with his boots on’, as it were! This happened on that eventful day of August 4, 2010, at age 51, when he was martyred in a dastardly suicide attack, a few yards away from his office at the FC HQs. Far from being an ‘armchair
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police officer’, he was an epitome of highly adorable virtues of patriotism, selfsacrifice, commitment to duty, and professional integrity.
Far from being an ‘armchair police officer’, he was an epitome of highly adorable virtues of patriotism, selfsacrifice, commitment to duty, and professional integrity
Mahjabina Safwat Ghayur and Nazie Rahim, the illustrious spouse and sister respectively of Safi (Safwat’s nickname), have recently published the instant book as a souvenir of his nostalgic but heart-rending reminiscences. It is a befitting tribute to the departed soul – an ‘au revoir’ verily canonizing his memory! Aside from a very absorbing foreword penned by Mahjabina Safwat Ghayur, the book seeks to collate and compile the impressions of a crosssection of people including the martyr’s family, friends, colleagues and admirers together with reproductions of newspaper articles
and write-ups, Facebook and e-mail dispatches/excerpts, proceedings concerning book launch of Ejaz Rahim’s ‘Safwat Ghayur and Other Poems’, his nineteen new poems for Safi, and condolence messages and material comprising a few select facsimiles and the deceased’s CV. The book informs us of some amazing features of Safwat Ghayur’s multi-faceted personality – his affable manners; his strong filial
Shine for Ever – Remembering Safwat Ghayur Compiled by: Mahjabina Safwat Ghayur and Nazie Rahim Published by: Dost Publications, St. 15, I-9/2, Islamabad Pages: 285; Price: 550/-
Apart from blood relations and family friends, eminent journalists, dedicated comrades-in-arms, prominent political figures, important public functionaries, jurists and diplomats have contributed articles and messages to this anthology
loyalties; his adroit Tae Kwon Do skills as a lefthanded; his fluency in Urdu, English, Arabic and French languages; his protracted but valiant fight against hepatitis (‘a disease he had contracted because of a blood transfusion he was given after a bullet pierced his left shoulder following a shootout with an outlaw in Mardan in 1995’, but he chose to die in action rather than ‘lose life’s battle against a disease’); his devout humanitarianism; his outstanding professional profile, and the like. Ejaz Rahim commemorates Safi’s martyrdom on his second anniversary in these lines: We have lost you/But you have found/ The master key/Of the Door/Through which only the Doers/Enter/Alive and awake –/While the Talkers snore/Long and keep sleeping. Mahjabina S. Ghayur’s highly evocative description of her late spouse in the foreword to the book, tends to consummate its theme and substance: “….. No one can let go of Safi. For Safi is life and life is Safi. There are no two ways about it. This is no wife raving and ranting about how she loves her husband and how she misses him. No, this is one human being writing her experience about another human being who was so close to perfection in every relationship bestowed on him that it makes me wonder whether he was even human or some celestial creature Allah had gifted us. But Safi was not just ours, he belonged to all. Behold how people have owned, cherished and revered Safi.” And now his sister Nazie
Rahim’s monologue drawing on the sweet memories of her dear departed brother: “ This was two hours before we got the horrible news … but Safi, you had told me we would be meeting in Nathiagali the coming Friday… As Ejaz puts it in his poem: On Friday, we surely met/But not/In Nathiagali. “And when we did meet, I am sure I saw you standing above, valiantly smiling and releasing a cluster of pigeons amidst angels’ greetings. …. ” (Which would ruefully remind the reader of the writer’s allusion to Safi’s fourth birthday in Morocco when the family planned a little ceremony to help relinquish his ‘prolonged’ use of the feeder by making him go up the balcony and free four pigeons, followed by throwing his bottle all the way down, which he did so valiantly amidst his family’s loud cheers!) Apart from blood relations and family friends, eminent journalists, dedicated comrades-inarms, prominent political figures, important public functionaries, jurists and diplomats have contributed articles and messages to this anthology. What a glorious epitaph ‘for whom the bell tolls’: “You have left us/For good but/The sunrise of your eyes/Is still with us.” (Ejaz Rahim)
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