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Model in a flowing eastern dress photographed in a bright Lahore room

Autumn / Winter · Five Chapters

The Lookbook

Three weeks, one city, no studio. Everything here was shot on location in Lahore with the people who wear the clothes.

Chapters
Four
Location
Lahore, throughout
Photography
Zara Qureshi

Editor's Note

We stopped using a studio in 2021. A kameez photographed on a white sweep looks perfect and tells you nothing.

Every look here is worn by someone who actually owns it. Nothing was borrowed from a stylist bank, and nothing was made for the shoot. If a piece creases in Chapter Three, it creases because that is how it sits after a long day in June.

We shot across three weeks because that is how long it takes to see what a garment really does. The first day you notice the cut. The second day you notice the fabric moving. By the third day you have forgotten you were being photographed, and that is the picture worth printing.

Four chapters, in order: the shoulder, the hand, the re-cut, and the signature. They are meant to be read in sequence, but any one of them stands on its own.

01

The Shoulder

Lahore · Zamzama Boulevard

ÉLAN, photographed at the end of the day when the light goes sideways. The whole chapter is about one decision: a squared shoulder, built with canvas, that everything else is cut to hang from.

  • Model in an embroidered formal kameez against a cool blue wall
    The Shoulder · 01
  • Formal Pakistani kameez with a dupatta, photographed front on
    The Shoulder · 02
  • Model in a formal eastern dress posing indoors
    The Shoulder · 03

02

The Hand

Lahore · the Gulberg workroom

NOOR, in the room where it is actually made. Tonal chikankari worked in the same dye lot as the ground cloth — texture from across a room, pattern from two feet away. Nothing in this chapter is louder than the person who made it.

  • Model in an embroidered salwar kameez with a matching dupatta
    The Hand · 01
  • Model in a kurta and shalwar set, seated
    The Hand · 02
  • Blue and white embroidered Pakistani dress
    The Hand · 03

03

The Re-cut

Lahore · MM Alam Road

AURA, shot where it is worn rather than displayed. Shortened kameez, wide trouser, and a dupatta knotted at the shoulder. This is the chapter that gets asked about most and understood least, so we photographed it in daylight, on a footpath, in June.

  • Model in an embroidered Pakistani kameez against modern decor
    The Re-cut · 01
  • Model in a contemporary eastern dress inside a bright Lahore studio
    The Re-cut · 02
  • Portrait of a model in Pakistani attire in natural light
    The Re-cut · 03

04

The Signature

Lahore · a courtyard in Gulberg

The five pieces we are judged on, photographed in one afternoon in a courtyard we borrowed. Cut velvet, couture cut-work, and a long embroidered coat worn open. This chapter is made in runs of thirty, so the clothes you see may already be spoken for.

  • Model in an ornate embroidered eastern dress inside a Lahore courtyard
    The Signature · 01
  • Model in a heavily embroidered eastern dress during a studio shoot
    The Signature · 02
  • Model in a hand-embroidered Pakistani dress
    The Signature · 03

Credits

Who made this

Photography
Zara Qureshi
Styling
Amna Sheikh
Hair & Makeup
Fatima Noor
Production
ELARÉ Atelier
Two finished pieces side by side in the atelier

Every piece in the book was made by the same eleven people.

Shop the Chapters

Everything in the book is still available

Nothing was made for the camera alone. Pieces come and go with the runs, so sizes shift week to week.

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