By Umer Nangiana
At 31, Ansar is a mother to three daughters and two sons. Her dream is to own a home, even if it is small. Twenty-year-old Saira is a high-school graduate. An obsessive fan of cricket, she is saving her income to continue education. Popinjay is helping them — besides 148 other women from Pakistan’s Punjab province — realise their dreams.
A premium artisan-made handbag label, Popinjay combines exquisite craftsmanship with ethical business. These handbags enable livelihoods for 150 female artisans in Hafizabad, Pakistan, offering them fair wages, dignity, pride and a path to self-sufficiency.
By connecting them to global markets, Popinjay brings them a fair value for their work. “For every Popinjay product you buy, a beautiful change is happening for the hands that created it,” says the brand which is carried by various premium retailers around the globe, including Anthropologie and One Kings Lane.
Through Popinjay, 150 women are learning the art of hand embroidery with silk or resham threads, and getting together for four hours every morning to create the beautiful motifs that appear on the Popinjay handbags.
Founded by a Pakistani female entrepreneur from Lahore, Saba Gul, Popinjay has come to town courtesy Hira Ahmed. Hira, a Pakistani expatriate born and raised in Doha, recently organised a trunk show, showcasing bestsellers from Habana, Popinjay’s new collection of vibrant, sleek totes and zip clutches, and their inaugural collection, La Mezquita.
“I heard about Popinjay and I was really intrigued because I am also into women empowerment. I work with a lot of conferences and I do a lot of community events. I felt this is something worth being brought to Qatar because there is an emerging market for fashion,” Hira tells Community.
“Everyone here loves fashion so why not ethical fashion, something that is committed to global sustainability,” she adds, explaining that the initiative is a great fusion of preserving the culture and art of Pakistan while exhibiting the luxury part of it, showing that they also produce high-end quality brands.
Among others, the trunk show revealed Popinjay’s ‘Kufic Quilted Foldover’ in black and its bestseller, the Anfa Envelope Clutch. Kufic, the asymmetric quilted foldover is the perfect day-to-night bag. Handcrafted with soft calf leather, it expands readily to fit your belongings.
Anfa Envelope Clutch combines style and heritage. It is inspired by the stunning Zellij stone work on the walls of Hasan II Mosque in Casablanca, Morocco, as part of La Mezquita collection. This trendy oversized clutch is large enough to make a statement, yet small enough to be clutched under the arm.
Narrating the story of Popinjay’s birth and expansion beyond Pakistan, Hira says the founder of the company, Saba Gul, was studying in MIT and working in Silicon Valley in the United States when she came across stories of Afghan women disguising themselves as boys to get an education. Through her travels around the world, she also came to realise the artisan women’s largely hidden talent.
This inspired Saba’s first handmade products’ label, Bliss in 2011 when she quit her job at Silicon and moved to Pakistan.
“She had this passion of empowerment, of doing social good and that is when she started her brand Bliss. It was originally known as Bliss, non-profit. After that when she wanted to upscale the business and reach outside Pakistan, she thought of changing it to for-profit and a social enterprise; that is when she rebranded it to Popinjay,” says Hira.
Each handbag is uniquely crafted by female artisans. These are created by designers in Pakistan and executed by female artisans who acquire the unique skill of embroidery. They work part time. Each employee works on each of the product line. Every bag, therefore, has been touched by the hands of all female artisans.
Material-wise, the leather is from Pakistan and locally made while the straps and other add-ons are imported. But the same, too, are imported from ethical companies. Popinjay ensures that these companies are giving good opportunities to workers.
“Popinjay believes in fair wage opportunities, giving their employees fair wage, not cheap labour, and that is why they are working with companies who share the same vision,” says the trunk show host.
There are ambassadors for Popinjay who have the opportunity to go and meet the artisans. Popinjay are connected to their artisans emotionally and not just through work. Saba herself meets with the families and knows them personally. It is a very small family that has grown to 150 employees in all and it is totally run by women and led by women, says Hira.
There is a range of bags. The starting price is QR500 and it goes up to QR1,000. The price depends upon the type of bag and the amount of embroidery done on it. The employees deserve to get more, says Hira. Also the accessories, if they are imported from Vietnam or Thailand, are definitely more valuable.
“Popinjay is similar to the top fashion labels in the fashion industry. They see what the latest fashion is and then they try to add local touch to it,” Hira explains.
In the Middle East, it is only available in Dubai besides its presence in USA, Toronto, India and one recently opened in Sri Lanka. Hira believes the most unique part of these handbags is that they are handcrafted, unique and beautiful and have a luxury aspect to them.
Through the trunk show, she says she tried to reach out and connect with different people such as bloggers to get the word out. A graduate from Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, Hira works for the Global Shapers community, a non-profit organisation under the World Economic Forum.
It is a group of young leaders between the ages of 20-30 who are doing community projects in order to improve the state of the community.
“It is a mix of Qataris and non-Qataris and we are selected on the basis of our passion, our commitment and our drive to do something good in the community. I guess this is an element that helped me join the global shapers and the same enthusiasm enabled me to do something like Popinjay which I am doing separately on my own,” Hira says.
She has a team of volunteer friends who assisted her with the arrangements for the trunk show held at Warwick Doha hotel.
Hira buys their products and sells them here. By introducing Popinjay here, she hopes to see the brand grow. The young entrepreneur is confident the brand would be popular once more people get to know about it. And to reach out to a wider audience, she plans on holding another trunk show in the near future.
Once it gets a foothold, she says, she would love to have her own outlet. “Yes, if the response is great, why not? I would love to be an official brand ambassador for them (Popinjay) and an advocate for their brand. It is something I truly believe in and know it touches my roots,” says Hira.
She says she is not in Pakistan and there is so much that she could do there but while being here she realised this is a great opportunity to do something while being in a different country. “I thought this is the least I can do and I felt really good,” says Hira.
TEAMWORK: Hira Ahmed, right, with her team. Photo: Umer Nangiana
