Pakistan’s Fashion Industry has once again thrown caution to the wind, thrown any kind of sensibility and consideration to the wind, thrown all common sense to the wind, and released a photoshoot epitomising elitism, sexism, and all kinds of discrimination.
PinkTree Company, a fashion brand co-owned by Mohsin Sayeed, released the following photos from their latest campaign:
For obvious reasons, people weren’t happy:
PinkTree Company released the following statement in response, aptly shifting the entire blame on the photographer:
“Kindly, check out our Instagram, you will find out the focus of the story. This shoot is about celebrating Empress Market in a series of Karachi’s bazaars. We ran a separate piece as a precursor to the shoot,” “As for the so-called controversy you mentioned, please contact the photographer Jaffer Hassan as pictures were picked up from his profile, not ours. So the controversy, if there’s any, has nothing to with The PinkTree brand.”
Can an entire campaign be released without approval from the brand that has hired the photographer?
While speaking to another Lifestyle magazine, Jaffer Hassan had the following to say:
“Not much to say honestly, my captions have always been a tongue in cheek humour. Though people can make anything out of nothing, trust me, I do so myself. Yet, if they actually bothered to read rather than to start foaming at the mouth like rabies injected woke politically correct culture diseases, they’d see that this is a story about Empress Market. I can guarantee you, not even 60% of this lot has ever been too.” Jaffer said.
Furthermore, the photographer stated that the aim of his work was largely around Karachi’s heritage buildings and nothing else.
“My work with the PinkTree Company is about the city, and the old times, take it how you will and want to. But to create a secondary meaning out a well-timed candid shot is honestly such a waste of space,” he added. “I do appreciate the attention in the last two days, it’s given me nothing but pure joy and pleasure to see an army of nobodies attacking me when they don’t even know me. It’s the best free entertainment one such as myself would enjoy, those who do know me, know I’m dying of the entertainment.”
The ‘army of nobodies’ is what has allowed brands like PinkTree and photographers like Jaffer Hassan achieve the level of success they enjoy but okay.
In our opinion, they were better, less crass ways to highlight Empress Market’s heritage. One could have focused on encroachment, as a twitter user suggested, or the terrible conditions, often times stolen, animals are kept in. In a country struggling to find a balance between the elite and working class, and struggling with even recognising sexual harassment and all it’s forms, another ill themed photoshoot was completely unnecessary. Amongst photoshoots with blackface and African heritage being used as props, our fashion industry as a whole, needs to do better.