Barjis has been away from the blog for a few months but not without reason, as we quickly find out through this catch up Q&A, the designer has been busy planning exciting projects for the coming seasons. Barjis Speaks on the year ahead, Capsule collection and defining “The Barjis Woman”.
Q. What does Barjis have planned for the next coming seasons?
A. Barjis will be launching a new capsule collection very soon. Our aim is to make the collections more accessible this season and offer choices for our Online customers around the world.
Q. Where have you drawn inspiration for the new collection?
A. This collection is for the stylish working modest woman. The inspiration was drawn from the Barjis woman travelling for a business project in a small exotic Island. She was exposed to local crafts, people making hand made crochet bags and around beautiful exotic wild flowers. My collections are always about modern classics with a twist. I love shirt dresses, printed shirts, printed trousers, crochet tops and trimmings, on simple silhouettes that become statement pieces with the textures and prints I incorporate.
Q. How is this exotic inspiration incorporated in this collection?
A. This season colour palette has soft pink with dark blue and a hint of off white and mint green. Even though it is a small capsule collection, it will incorporate everything a woman needs from day to evening. Hand made textures, hand painted prints and contrasting materials something that is unique of BARJIS
Q. Describe your creative process for the new collection?
A. Every season BARJIS’s woman goes on a journey, she loves travelling and through this journey she finds new opportunities, inspirations and thoughts. This all becomes incorporated in my work. Either deliberately or subconsciously. It starts with looking at places where I have been or would like to go, I then create a story through the references and fabrics that I am exposed with. This is the only time where I like to be free without restrictions to explore new ideas. My collections are never too dramatic, but they always have some underlying thought or story which make the pieces more interesting yet wearable.
Q. Who is the BARJIS woman? Who is this collection for?
A. I launched Barjis with the aim of overcoming the challenges that modest working women face on a daily basis. Barjis woman does not like too much drama or attention grabbing pieces but she does like colour, print, textures. She is very much a modern woman, well travelled, well educated. Progressive, a forward thinker but can be very conservative and traditional at heart. She is quite contradicting by nature, her moods dictate what she wears. She can be fun and confident one day but prefer playing safe another day. However even when she plays safe her pieces need to have that extra attention to detail. She believes that the benchmark of progression is not what you wear but how you think. It’s not how much you expose in terms of flesh but how you carry yourself. You can be progressive and conservative, you can be progressive yet modest. Intelligence and articulation is her strength and this is echoed through her clothing. Barjis woman can be a hijab wearer and a woman who doesn’t wear the hijab. You will find her in every walks of life, whether on the streets of Karachi, Casablanca, Jakarta, Delhi, Istanbul or even working as a Director for a multi national company in Paris, New York or London. Barjis woman is powerful, modest, humble, progressive and cultured.
Q. Three words to describe the BARJIS brand?
A. Progressive, Modest, Quirky
