New Delhi: A lively confrontation between India and Pakistan is under way. Pakistani fashion designers, armed with heaps of wafer-thin cotton and lace, against the grimly determined middle-class shoppers of the Indian capital.
Early signs are that while Pakistan has the moral victory, the Indian shoppers have succeeded in driving the designers back, behind chairs, tables and signboards to seek refuge from seething crowds demanding outfits and shoes.
Delhi is hosting a first-ever exhibit of Pakistani fashion, furnishings and other design items. The Lifestyle Pakistan show is intended to connect Pakistani exporters with Indian importers – part of an effort to boost the paltry levels of trade between the two countries and further normalize relations. The commerce ministers of both nations kicked off the event, organized by the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan and its Indian counterpart, and a huge delegation of Pakistani businesspeople made the trip.
Almost as an afterthought, organisers added a chance for the public to come and shop. And oh, how they are shopping.
“We’re just crazy about Pakistani suits: the cut, the design, the fabric,” said Sarita Khera, catching her breath with a bulging bag of shalwar kameez at her feet. Ms. Khera runs a watch manufacturing company; she likes colourful clothes for the office. “The Pakistani ones are just much better than anything you can get in India.”
Last year, Pakistan finally gave India most favoured nation status and the countries are now negotiating a preferential trade agreement. Lifestyle Pakistan, set up by the business communities on both sides of the border, is intended to boost the business process between the two countries.
More open borders was a hot topic of conversation when Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari came to meet Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last weekend. Trade now stands at $2.6-billion a year; the trade pact should push that to $10-billion. This first-ever collaboration between the two countries’ trade organizations is a sign of a substantial thaw.
“A lot of movement has happened in the last one year, the [trade] normalization is going very fast,” Pakistani Commerce Secretary Zafar Mahmood told reporters at the opening of the show.
“We were not expecting to have so much response, and we are not prepared,” said Talha Javed, chief designer for House of Ittehad, a textile company in Faisalabad.
Only a handful of the highest-end Pakistani fashion houses currently have their designs distributed in India, and Mr. Javed had high hopes of finding an importer through this show.
Mr. Javed had only one complaint. “People are really bargaining, but our prices are already low, so it’s really a problem. They do so much bargaining.”
“People here crave Pakistani stuff,” said Yasir Orawala, manager of a Karachi clothing and shoe company called Needle Impressions.
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