Umbreen Tapal » Style

Big smile ;)

umbreen — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 19:39:43 +0000

Pakistan Fashion Week

umbreen — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:02:26 +0000

Went to the Friday night showing for the ‘First Annual Pakistan Fashion Week’. Okay, I will skip all the general commentary about contrasts in Pakistani society, conservative vs. extremely un-conservative…blah blah blah.The show was good.(Un-conservative: that’s going to be my new work for opposite of conservative given all the heavy meaning and language politics words can have.)Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take any “unauthorized” photographs (not that I would have anyways; way to look like a newbie) – so there isn’t much to post about.LOVED. This once girl (crowd) was wearing this lone vertically stripped poncho/long loose shirt off the shoulder type things. She also had a clutch in similar vertical stripes but thinner – which I LOVED. I was planning to pull a Sartorialist and be all like, I have a fashion blog can I photograph you? But the crowd after the show was insanely packed.Also loved the show for Sanam Chaudhry; it was full of flowing fabrics in amazingly vibrant colors. A lot of the peices were very vintage-y which I loved. Here collection was definitely very wear-able even if it wasn’t that innovative.I also really loved Maheen Hussain’s show which was basically scarfs and bags. I really loved the way she styles and showcased her products, and I the color combination were mouth watering-ly delicious.The last show was Rizwan Beyg and it was amazing – in all white with pearl embellishments and hand crafted his pieces were a work of art. Obviously, totally un-wearable but all about what clothes as art.The show was really well organized; even when the ‘bijli went out’ – the organizers did a great job. I also liked that they had awards for the best dressed women / men in the crowd. It was fun to get the interaction; an also all about how fashion is people own personal style.A LITTLE LESS LOVED.I was annoyed about the bored people looked at the time as if they didn’t really want to be there. Booo to the jaded socialite look. Also, boo to people that were clapping a little too loud and hooting! OMG.I was really enjoying the music too – especially whatever was playing during the Ismail Farid men’s wear collect. I can’t stop my body from moving when the beat is so good; but as expected everyone else was just sitting there with a bored look.Regardless – the fashion show was great. Hope to see a lot more of them in the future!

Things missed: Street Fashion

umbreen — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 10:27:43 +0000

One of the things I miss living in Karachi is the non-existent street life.For those who don’t know; basically if you are on the streets in the city you try to blend in as much as possible. You also have to avoid the general hotness, garbage in the street and ignore all the men staring. As in – not a place where any young people are going to be walking around in fun street fashion.Because of this I’ve been really into following street fashion blogs from around the world. My favorite is of course; The Sartorialist. Really what I love about what he shoots – aside from the loving depiction of people from all walks of life and beautiful to look at pictures – is the quirkyness of his subject. The subjects are not usually of ‘fashion magazine’ perfect fashion sense – it’s all about how their style represents a personal statement.Below are a link of some of my recent favorite images. I just like looking at them and imagine the environment – it’s almost like a 30 second mini vacation.

I love bright yellow background (my fav color) and the moment captured (what is the conversation onthe phone?) In terms of the clothes I love the boxy men's style of the clothes which still to me looks very breezy cool and sexy. (Source: thesartorialist.com)

Young girl with skinny legs on phone. I really like the contrast between this photo and the one above both in terms of the background, expression on the woman's (girl's?) face and the overall tone of the image. I love the outfit for its flow-y thick top and the skinny bare legs with short dress.

Other blogs I’ve been recently following include Feedshion which is (you guessed it) an aggregated fashion feed site. Also love Feedpeeper (Peeps!) – but the RSS feed doesn’t include the pictures so that’s a booooo. But it does have street fashion from different cities which is fun to compare and contrast.