Strings put in a surprise appearance at the Veet Celebration of Beauty show
Fashion rocks!
Strings put in a surprise appearance at the Veet Celebration of Beauty show
Saba Imtiaz
Karachi
From a very personal perspective, I hate surprises. Particularly surprise phone calls, where you spend at least three agonizing minutes while the caller makes you guess his/her identity. Or surprise birthday parties, which are a pain to organize and by the time the victim is ‘surprised’, one’s fake-ooh-look-at-what-we-pulled-off expression has been plastered on for hours. And even though surprises at a fashion show are rare, the organizers of the recent Veet show pulled a rather lovely one off.
One had heard rumours of a surprise at the show – which featured collections by Faiza Samee, Saadia Mirza, Ayesha F. Hashwani, Zara Shahjahan, HSY and Sonya Battla – but the details had been kept under wraps. In the midst of the Saadia Mirza segment of the show, the music changed to Strings’ ‘Koi Aanay Wala Hai’ and as the models walked out, so did Faisal Kapadia, lip-syncing along to the band’s popular hit from their last album. Faisal – who seemed completely at ease on the runway – was met with resounding applause, and after his exit, came Bilal Maqsood with a guitar in tow to perform ‘Sar Kiye Yeh Pahar’, that original Strings classic that continues to be one of their most-loved and most recognizable songs. The duo then united on stage to groove to ‘Dhaani’, from their 2003 album of the same name. Credit to the models for not even batting an eyelid, but LSA winner Nadia Hussain did pause to smile at Bilal Maqsood as she made her turn down the runway.
The concept of having musicians perform at fashion shows is fairly new to Pakistan (earlier only seen at the TRC/Ensemble Ponds show and award ceremonies like the Lux Style Awards) but made popular worldwide by the annual Fashion Rocks concert that has seen artists like Bryan Adams, Rihanna, Gwen Stefani and Bon Jovi perform during fashion shows. It was an absolutely fantastic move though. And it marked an all-too-welcome change from the usual ‘tableau/dance’ segment the Veet shows have been known for (that have left one cringing in their seat as opposed to grooving along with, as the audience did this time around).
Kudos to Frieha Altaf of Catalyst PR for putting this together, and finally doing away with the tableaux; that in previous years have featured warped versions of the stories of Eve and Cinderella replete with dancing boxes of Veet. This move not only guarantees that the show gets its ratings (after all, music does outsell fashion any day of the week) and in a country where music and fashion have formed so many linkages it made absolutely perfect sense. Strings were the showstoppers (with many apologies to those who hate Madhur Bhandarkar for popularizing the word) of the night.
Look out for Instep’s coverage of the Veet show in Instep on Sunday tomorrow.
– Event organized by
Catalyst PR
– Photography by
Faisal Farooqui
