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Introduction of Pak jewellery in world market stressed

Zahid A Baig

LAHORE: Shafaq Habib, a US-trained jewellery designer, has stressed the need for introduction of Pakistani (Eastern) style jewellery in the international market.

Shafaq, who is one of the few foreign trained jewellery fashion designers in Pakistan, held her first exhibition back in 1982 in Washington D.C. For the last two years she has been living in Islamabad, and she has arranged some 11 exhibitions in the provincial capitals.

During these two years she went abroad twice to exhibit her designer jewellery, which is a blend of the East and the West.

Talking to the Business Recorder here on Saturday on the last day of her two-day exhibition in Lahore, she said that India was earning about $2 billion annually by exporting its gems and jewellery.

To a question she said that she had got much better response in Pakistan than abroad. She said that her, exhibitions in the West were aimed at attracting the Pakistani expatriates.

She regretted that in Pakistan jewellery designers were yet to adopt the latest techniques. Old techniques of melting gold for designing in which wastage ratio of gold was much higher.

She said that although the Export Promotion Bureau had established a jewellery fashion designing school at Karachi, there was a need to update its curriculum according to the requirements of the contemporary age. She said, "to make our products exportable we have to mechanise our jewellery industry." She was of the view that the machinery at present being used was not of that standard.

Talking about how she, being a woman, feels while arranging her exhibitions in different cities of the country, she said that it was far better to work in America than in Pakistan. She also complained about the attitude of women towards learning technique. She said that she was running workshops for the last two years and only one female worker could be convinced to learn this art.