Aisha Fayyaz owner and founder of online dress designing portal – Hooriezeh Outfit was exclusively talking to BizToday correspondent and shared her views on her journey from where it started, where its heading and where she plans to go.
She started off by saying that; “I started my professional career during 2016, but that won’t be and honest statement as I had started much early then that. Since my early ages I was always very cautious and passionate about what I wore. I always wanted to look difference from the rest and that use to create a spark within myself to create something extra ordinary from what I already wore”.
Aisha Fayyaz went on to say that; “I started off by designing for myself and then gradually moving ahead by designing for my cousins, neighbours and friends. Initially I use to help them their selection of dress and then started proper dress designing for them. I still remember their smile that came along with the dress they wore and their praises and smiles gave me intense satisfaction”.
She added by saying that; “my passion for dress designing was growing every day and then I decided to get some formal training/education for dress designing. I applied to get myself enrolled in one of the top fashion school of Karachi, where I succeeded in getting enrolled and was about to start my classes when my parents decided to arrange my wedding. Due to my wedding festivities I had to postpone my joining my class for fashion designing”.
She further added by saying that; “luckily I also designed my dresses for my big occasion and I paid special attention all the finer details on my dresses that are related to events maayoon, mehendi, baraat & valeema. My bridal dress turned out to be a huge success due its unique design and colour combination. Many of my friends wore my bridal dress and all of them praised it for its uniqueness and for its colour combination”.
On her hibernation from dress designing she said; “after getting married, I went into house-wife mode with daily routine starting from early morning and going on till late night and this resulted in hibernating myself from fashion designing. This cut off from fashion designing didn’t mean a complete cut-off, it was just a physical cut-off and mentally I was never too far from fashion designing. My sense of observation always clicked-on whenever I saw someone wearing something very outstanding or something odd”.
Replying to a question on what prompted her to restart her journey, she said; “my cut-off from fashion designing lasted for few years and when my kids started going to school, I started getting free time. This time I discussed the idea of my dress designing with my husband who supported my idea of starting dress designing professionally. I did observe that a lot had changed during this course of time, mind-set of Pakistan’s has progressed a lot and has the world of dress designing. Many women are coming into this field now and that gave me a lot of moral support. These two factors gave me freedom to spread my wings further.”
During 2016 Aisha Fayyaz started her professional journey and she shared that period by saying that; “I re-started my fashion designing journey with social media especially WhatsApp, through which I started informed all of my friends and luckily most of my friends live abroad and they showing immense amount of craze to wear Pakistani fabric and designs. With their orders I started gaining momentum and because of them I also got orders for bridal and party wear from Norway, Germany, UK, UAE and USA. After success of my female wear, I got an opportunity to create wedding-menswear for groom, theme dresses for father, brothers, friends & cousins. This also turned out to be a huge success and gave me good experience”.
On her progress she shared that; “in-between I had also starting doing dresses for kids and one of my most popular segment was mother-daughter twinning, which is very adored in our society. I get orders for mother-daughter twinning from all over the world. Hijab and Abaya, what I wear is designed by myself and I also take orders for Hijab and Abaya, I don’t get much complains and most of them are satisfied and then they recommend me to others. Today my dress designing portal – Hooriezeh Outfit caters to Hooriezeh Bridal Outfits, Hooriezeh Kurtis, Hooriezeh Men’s, Hooriezeh Kids and Hooriezeh Abayas. We design according to client’s requirement and client’s budget with best quality stuff and best quality stitching”.
Replying to question on how you coped-up with pandemic/COivid-19, she said; “when covid came, suddenly all my orders stopped and I had no clue what to do, that’s when I decided to plan an exhibition. This exhibition turned out to be a huge success and gave me confidence to do more in this direction. I make sure to work to my full capacity and no one can imagine that during that Eid, I was so much overworked and busy that I didn’t prepare any Eid dresses for myself nor for my family. This can be good a gauge for my selfless commitment and dedication towards my work”.
On her future plans she said; “I have future plans for an outlet for fulfilling the dreams of my clients. Whenever a client comes to first thing I ask is their requirement and then I ask about their budget for it. Then I try to full clients dream as my logo is ‘Try to Fulfil Your Dreams’. But we make sure not to compromise on quality and we make sure that the quality of fabric is of always available quality”.
On concluding remarks Aisha Fayyaz said; “my message to all the new comers especially females is, IF ALLAH has blessed you with skills and talent then don’t waste them, go for them, don’t hesitate and don’t waste your skills and talent. During last two decades I have noted that overall mind-set has changed a lot for betterment. Today due to immense use of social media, almost everything can be managed while staying home, you don’t have to go places for each and every chore. If you are lucky enough to have kids, then don’t consider that as a hurdle as I have always considered my kids as my energy boosters, they can always give excellent ideas and they also pressurize you to do more and excel more. My today’s bottom line would be that, Today’s woman can managed everything by herself, she can manage her home, her kids and her business also. You just need some SELF CONFIDENCE”.
“TRY TO FULFIL YOUR DREAMS”
