Hey everyone,
I’ve been looking at some threads on the Bazaar, fashion and wedding forums and have noticed that some of the items that are put across are very expensive even though their from pakistan… I mean some of the dresses being shown on the bazaar forum are not even worth the 20,000 rps mark they’re asking for. You can get a similar dress from a shop here in the UK for £50 in the sales..
Re: Better to buy from the UK or abroad
check ur pm crown
Re: Better to buy from the UK or abroad
I don't buy from the UK and I never would, especially a £50 suit. The fabrics are cheap georgettes and silks, the work is cheap and plastic. Even the heavy outfits with lots of bling - hideous cheap stones. Those suits wouldn't cost more than £20-£30 to buy in Pakistan.
I was at a wedding exhibition at the end of last year and there were a few Pakistani vendors. They were selling stuff in the £250 range (semi-formal). Let's say they were hugely inflated due to expected bargaining and you could get them for about £100... still way too much for synthetic fabrics and cheap kaam and they'd still be making a profit.
Those who know the costs of good quality, pure fabrics,well made kaam and tailoring in Pak don't generally find the bazaar prices excessive - you get what you pay for.
Re: Better to buy from the UK or abroad
Crown, I'm not sure what sort of dresses you are talking about, but I feel long gone are the days when dresses used to even start from £50. The majority of party wear dresses I have seen start from £100 or £120. And these are mostly from India, I do prefer Pakistani clothes as they're colour schemes, fabrics & designs have a lot more variety.
Re: Better to buy from the UK or abroad
Please don't get me wrong some of the dresses are wow but some are Ummmmm if you get what I mean..... maybe not
I'm not all clued up about material and kaam on suits whatever looks good it will do kind of thing.... However, these replicas tht are made what exactly gives way is it the material the kaam or labour cost
Re: Better to buy from the UK or abroad
I don't get what you mean in the last bit of your post?
And everyone is different. I don't spend that much money per year on desi clothes and when I do, I want them to be good quality and get more than one wear out of them. I don't want them coming apart at the seams and ever since I was young I've been in love with embroidery, so the kaam really matters to me.
My friend bought some nice looking stuff at very reasonable prices from southall and I was tempted to go have a look as they didn't seem bad at all for the price she paid. She told me not to bother as the suits don't last more than one wear. She said in future she'd rather spend a bit more and have them made from Pak where she can choose the quality and pay accordingly.
I've just had two differently styled nishat linen suits made for her from the fabric of one 3-piece and the nishat fabric alone cost Rs.4,500... not to mention the extra fabric needed to make additional trousers, duputta etc. So yeh, when good quality nice casuals that you can wear to people's houses are costing this much in Pak, you can see how much you'd be paying for good quality formals.
Re: Better to buy from the UK or abroad
She is write your friend some suits do look wow but can come away at the sides…
I can not work out how are you meant to tell if the quality of the work is brill or not… i mean in the sense if its done proper or not… i suppose the neatness is one thing, this is what happens when you have very little clue on material and work 
Re: Better to buy from the UK or abroad
I hate purchasing stuff here in the U.S. Although my city has a large amount of desi stores....it's just like stopit said....you get what you pay for. I don't buy casual desi wear. I only purchase formals to wear at weddings and other special occassions. And from my personal experience....the cheaper formals here have really bad quality (in terms of fabric and kaam). The fitting is awful too. The good quality items also has a certain price tag attached to it.
Last year I went to Delhi and spent a day looking for formals there. Same experience there. I thought that that "nicer" stuff will be cheaper there...and I was wrong. I didn't find a large price difference. My best friend's mom went to Karachi last November and came back with the same story.
Now the situation might be different for people who have family back home who're "regulars" at certain stores and/or they buy tons of stuff and thus get bigger discounts due to the volume bought. One of my fiance's friend has 5 sisters and tons of family back home....so when they go shopping...their prices seem cheap to me but then again....they also purchase over 100 outfits during their trips (5 sisters + mom + gifts for others). So yea...when you're purchasing that type of volume...of course the price per outfit goes down.
Since I only buy formals....I don't mind paying a reasonable price for quality b/c I want the outfits to last me for years. Plus I don't want anyone to look at my outfit and think that the fabric/kaam is cheap (I know I think this when I see poor quality outfits on others).
Re: Better to buy from the UK or abroad
Well I think the more exposure you have to well made suits and fabrics and if you look at them closely and compare them to the stuff you mostly get here... you will see the difference.
When I was growing up, my mum used to stitch all our clothes. So going to fabric shops and the market (usually in Tooting) was a regular thing. So most of the stuff I know about fabrics comes from that.. she would only ever buy pure fabrics and it was always a mission trying to find them out of all the synthetic stuff. I also learnt how to do embroidery so I'm not about to pay for something that so basically done that I could do it myself.
Re: Better to buy from the UK or abroad
stoppit, you are right about the embroidery, also, I find knowing how to do it myself means that even when I do buy it, I know how to look for quality kaam, because a lot of it is better than mine...lol.
Crown, generally speaking, if you are in the UK, there's two main types of fabrics coming from three or four different places. Back in the early days, the natural fabrics, like silks, georgettes, linens and cottons were generally English made, or from India or Pakistan. It's hard for me to describe them to you, so if you have a friend who can go once or twice to a market with you and show you what they look and feel like, you'll be able to tell yourself in no time. Unfortunately, a lot of the English made fabric is being outsourced to mills in other countries, so there's little of that available even though it's of excellent quality. For the most part, it tends to be of the plainer variety in terms of pattern and more fusion looking.
Then there's the polyesters, synthetic silks and chiffons that are made in Pakistan, India, or China. A lot of the machine work, with sequins and with thread tends to be from India and China these days. The main way to tell quality from not in terms of fabric is to touch it. Good quality fabric is first of all, natural, such as cotton or silk, derived from plants or in the case of silk, insects. It will always be softer to the touch, and it won't be the kind to make you sweat. Polyester tends to feel a little bit plasticy, and it will be thin and lightweight. Most of the cheaper three piece polyester suits that you get in the market these days come from India and China. The way to tell is usually just to look at the way the embroidery has been place on the kaccha kapra. The Indian and Chinese give a lot less space for the darzi to cut. Your darzi may be able to tell you.
As for kaam, look at the back of the fabric if you're a newbie, you will see hand knotted stitches to close embroidery and beads thread on. The threads themselves tend to be thicker and softer and have more a of a "3-D" feel when you touch the work. Machine work is cheaper, but not necessarily poorer in quality, it just means that the kaarigars can finish it faster so they charge less for it. For the most part, it's only sequin and thread, and large bead work. If it's done on polyester, you can generally assume it's from China, especially if the beads look plasticy and like they are going to fall of the thread. If it's just plain thread work on cotton or linen, also known as resham, it's most likely pakistani.
You CAN find decent clothes at reasonable prices in the UK, or it's been my experience as much. It just depends on how much you buy in terms of desiwear per year, and where you shop.
Re: Better to buy from the UK or abroad
I only buy 'emergency' suits from Southall or Green Street. Emergency means, I know im only going to wear them once as an unexpected occassion has come up and I know they will only last one wear.
I would never pay more than £30 for an 'emergency' suit though.
My cousin's wedding last year, all my cousins had outfits from Southall, Bradford, Brumland, Green Street. Cheap PLASTIC stones. All of them!
My outfits (thanks to Stoppits) were from Pakistan, I thought I had paid quite a bit for them, but when I found out that one of my cousins paid over £150 for plastic stones, I gave myself a pat on the back. None of my outfits has plastic stones on them. My BIL has grew up around fabrics and he can sew men and womens clothing. He had to fix one of my suits and commented how the fabric was of a very high standard. He was shocked when I told him how much I paid for that outfit as he expected it to be a lot more.
I still dont know much about clothes and fabrics, but I do know a little about the difference between quality of kaam since I bought my clothes from Pak. Everytime I go to Green Street and Southall I turn my nose up at 99% of what is there.
Re: Better to buy from the UK or abroad
I Think i need a BIIG help here lol...i end up gowing stratford rd, ladypool rd and alum rock! Ofcourse for my eid suits n relatives weddings ectt...cuz if i spend over £80 on a suit my mum wud go maddddddd lol!
So guys whats the difference in a designer outfit n a normal cheap outfit if they look exactly identical? n u most probs only going to wear it 5 times ?
Re: Better to buy from the UK or abroad
^ My £30 suit just about managed 2 wears, £80 suit gets you 5 wears. A couple more quid could get you 10 wears. Quality isnt that much more, especially when quality is really good quality.
Re: Better to buy from the UK or abroad
No ones talking about designer, we're just talking about good quality outfits. And I'm afraid I don't agree with "look the same" - they don't. Cheap quality looks it. I won't argue that a lot of people can't tell the difference though.
£80 is roughly Rs.11,500. There are sellers in the bazaar forum offering very nice semi formals and light formals in this sort of range. Much better than what you would get for £80 here.
Re: Better to buy from the UK or abroad
I agree with that last statement! ^
Re: Better to buy from the UK or abroad
it's ALWAYS better to buy from abroad because you can choose your own quality of kaprah and kaam. The quality of kaprah available in UK is actually very cheap and when theyre charging you stupid amounts, you're basically being mugged! I've felt the amazing quality that you can get from abroad because all my jaheiz and valima outfit is from Pak! I've gone to green st/southall and looked at the quality and it's felt rough and not nice to wear at all. The shopkeepers are absolute LIARS in saying its the best quality and theyre using australian diamonds or something. which is absolute rubbish! Things may be expensive abroad but at least you know what it is that you're paying off. It's always better to buy from abroad IMO.