Fashion designers abound throughout India and Pakistan but only a few stand head and shoulders above the rest. Why is this?
The ones that seek success often have an entrepreneurial spirit. They think wider than just design. Think Gucci, think D & G. These male designers created brands and worked out how to get these to as wide a market as possible. Against the odds, that’s what Maria. B. did.
As a child, Maria loved poetry, art and painting in that order. It was a natural progression that led her to create one of Pakistan’s most successful fashion brands.
Here’s her story.
Background
Being the daughter of an army officer meant that Maria’s childhood was itinerant until her father left the army and settled in Karachi, the creative hub of Pakistan.
Maria credits her Karachi school, St Joseph’s Convent, with turning her into what she is today. She says,
“We had great art teachers. I loved oils.
I also knew I loved fashion.” She also used to raid her teacher mother’s closet and dress up in the saris, admiring the prints and textures.
Maria B graduated from the Pakistan Institute of Fashion Design in 1998, the first fashion school in Pakistan. “We were the first batch and had no icons, nobody to look up to; no one had graduated before us,” she remembers.
Maria came first in all her topics in all her modules, and loved her studies. When she graduated, she knew she did not want to do just couture. “I didn’t want to sit at home in a studio; I wanted to do ready-to wear,” she explains. Planning and time were essentials for this.
Maria.B. started in 1999 with a small stitching unit consisting of 10 people and Maria’s own investment.
“I used to make patterns myself, sit at the machines myself, stitch and teach the stitchers, the handworkers and cutters as no one was trained at that time; we started at rock bottom.” After a year, she bought one store. Today Maria. B. has over a thousand employees and is one of Pakistan’s most diverse designer fashion brands with prêt a porter, couture, formal wear, children’s wear, lawn, embroidered fabrics, linen and cottons. There are over 25 standalone outlets in 12 different cities across Pakistan, and Maria exports to India, the UK, USA, Bangladesh, UAE and Qatar.
Challenges
During the hectic start up period, Maria. B. needed to produce a large amount of clothes for Eid customers. Then, three weeks before Eid, disaster struck. “There was a huge fire at my factory. It was rented premises. Everything we had made was burnt to the floor. We had nothing. I remember going to the charred factory premises. I was crying. My workers looked at me to assess my reaction and how I would handle it. I said, ‘get me a table and chair. We are going to build this from scratch and we are going to sell clothes for Eid for people to wear.’ None of us knew how I was going to do this.”
She led by example. “I didn’t sleep for three weeks. I was at the factory day and night. Going to the stores myself, getting fabric on credit, using my old alliances, outsourcing my stitching. Everyobody was shattered so I had to stand up for them all.” All her workers had families, so Maria. B. resolved to pay all of the employees. “Everyone is going to walk out with salaries at the end of the day,” she told them. By Eid, all the sales were done. “I collapsed and was in bed throughout Eid. That’s the challenge I remember most in my 18 year career.”
Today Maria. B. has 12 different wings. Her entrepreneurship is what has made her product different to other designers.
She says, “Fashion is a medium that can speak volumes, bridge the gap between cultures, and allow human expression like nothing else can. I am lucky enough to be in love with my work.”
The designer says that amongst all of her muses, her family remains the most important.
Maria B will show at Fashion Parade Bride and Luxury Pret powered by Studio by TCS on February 6th 2017. It will celebrate 70 years of Pakistan’s style evolution with leading designers at One Marylebone. Organiser Mustang Productions has partnered with the British Asian Trust, a charity founded by HRH The Prince of Wales to transform lives in South Asia. The funds raised during Fashion Parade Bride will go towards life-changing programmes in the Trust’s children’s projects.
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"I didn’t sleep for three weeks. I was at the factory day and night."
