Re: What is wrong with all these designers?
I don't understand your first sentence, but I wasn't saying you HAVE to go for a designer. At the end of the day, even if you have a designer outfit and bad makeup, you won't look nice so for me, makeup is the most important thing. My point was if you ask one designer to copy the outfit of another designer, it might be insulting for them (i thought you had decided to ask rani emaan to copy an HSY outfit).
I'm sure whoever you go with will make you a beautiful outfit inshaAllah, but what I meant was if you choose to go with any karigar in Pindi or elsewhere to replicate a designer outfit, don't expect it to look 100% like the original. try to look at what they have made themselves so you can choose what they are best at doing and something they've already had experience with...if you go off a picture and ask them to make an outfit from that, it might not be what you were expecting. (trust me, even when i went to Karma, I saw an outfit from a picture and in real life, it was hideous)
regardless of your decision, you don't have to be insulting to someone who did go with designers...if it really was that easy to pick up these guys karigars, people would never pay 6000 bucks a pop. The family of "random doctors" like Dr. Haroon's have been in this business for generations and their karigars have stayed with them forever, which is why its hard to make a replica of some of these designers. With others, its easier.
and I totally agree with you, you didn't deserve to have them not respond to you, but from another post I saw about HSY, their customer service is definitely sub-par and that can make or break whether you decide to go with someone. Actually, the reason I went with Dr. Haroon was because of his amazing customer service, he always responded to emails asap and being out of the country, it meant a lot.
Sorry I didnt mean to be insulting towards you at all! But I dont understand the concept of these designers at all. I dont understand why people pay 10 lakh for a dress not worth more than 2 lakh while boosting about it. To me it just seems like rich people in pakistan dont know what to do with their money (helping the poor would be a good start).
I personally wouldnt pay so much for a wedding outfit I will probably not get to wear again. Not because I cant afford it but I cant justify wasting my parents money when I know somebody else can make the same thing for less than half.
I had my clothes made for my cousins wedding from an old kharigars in Rawalpindi who also made my mums bridal stuff. He replicated an outfit perfectly. My cousin also wasnt sure what she wanted and he went through some designs with her and came up with an awesome two colour dress type lengha.
I have seen alot of designer bridal lengha's and frankly most of them just look like pieces of random cloth sewn together and if most people saw the some thinh at a Karigars in Pindi I know for a fact they would not buy!
no its ok :) i totally agree with you...I wasn't planning on going with a designer, because I had gone to a few designers and felt the same way you do. Most of the stuff was NOT worth the price tag, but it was the same at some boutiques I had gone to (and it wasnt even cheap enough for me to feel ok about...1 lakh or 1.15 lakhs as opposed to 2).
I went with Dr. Haroon cause my mom and I were satisfied with the type of kaam, and it was worth the price tag. Mine wasn't $6000 though, thats WAY too much for a bridal outfit...and HSY is one of the designers that is more often copied. At that price, he better have the best customer service in the world. I walked away from Sana Safinaz for the same reason (it was worse though, I was in her store and she didnt even address me!)
You're lucky to have karigars that your family has gone to for a while...I dont know about people in Pakistan who go to designers, but for me, I didn't really have the option or time of going to a regular karigar. I didn't know one that I could trust, and even if I could find one I didn't have experience with, I didnt have someone to keep following up with them. When I found someone who had good customer service, a good product and reputation, I just went with it and was satisfied in the end.
I've mentioned this before though in another thread, but the wedding I've been most jealous of was the wedding of a friend who had her mother make her jora, her friend do her makeup, and her uncle design/make her stage. Everything looked STUNNING and because her relatives did those things, it was hard for anyone to replicate. Her jora was stunning... the things from weddings I like the most are things that can't just be bought off with a big price tag.