The glamour of khaddar: Omar Mansoor’s ode to Kamalia

Summary

• Omar Mansoor on khaddar, Pakistani craft, and why the people who make the clothes should be named.
• Omar Mansoor: Fashion loves talking about the designer and the label.
• Omar Mansoor: It’s honest.

AI Generated Summary

Omar Mansoor on khaddar, Pakistani craft, and why the people who make the clothes should be named.

Omar Mansoor showed his Spring/Summer 2027 collection, The Living Loom, at New York Fashion Week and then took it to London. It’s built around handwoven khaddar from Kamalia, in Punjab, made by weavers whose families have done this work for generations.

He didn’t dress the fabric up. The uneven weave is left visible, and the tailoring does the modern part.

But for Mansoor the story doesn’t stop at the cloth. It’s about the people who make it, and why their names almost never travel with the clothes.

Minute Mirror spoke to him about craft, credit, and where Pakistani designers fit in the international fashion conversation.

Who gets the credit?

Minute Mirror: A lot of luxury fashion depends on craft from the Global South, and the makers rarely get named. Why?

Omar Mansoor: Fashion loves talking about the designer and the label. It’s much less interested in who actually made the thing. Pakistan has extraordinary artisans with skills handed down over generations, and you almost never hear their names. In luxury, artisans are often kept anonymous on purpose. I think Pakistani designers have to change that ourselves. Waiting for Western labels to credit our crafts won’t work.