Staff Reporter
IRANIAN born American fashion designer Sarah Takesh, guest designer at this year’s VCUQ fashion show, is a unique personality in her field, courtesy her fusion of social and profit objectives.
Not many from her industry might opt to operate out of a place like war-torn Kabul in Afghanistan.
Tarsian & Blinkley, with the young designer as the creative and managing director, directly impacts the lives of 300 women in Kabul.
“Afghan women have gone completely unnoticed in the past,” observed Takesh who explained that despite the country undergoing a devastating phase it retains a rich cultural legacy.
The firm pays the women they employ wages that are well above the country’s standards and expose them to market-sensitive practices of quality control while its partners provide the women with skill training such as tailoring and literacy.
In exchange for the opportunity to make a sustainable living, feed themselves and their families, Tarsian & Blinkley gets loyal employees who stitch, embroider, bead, and knit clothing and accessories using age-old handicrafts techniques unique to central Asia.
“When I met some of these women for the first time, they used to cover their faces, but now they use mobile phones,” Takesh said yesterday while describing her experiences in the Afghan capital.
The unassuming professional, who considers herself ‘still at a very early stage of her career to be a guest designer’ is in the process of setting up a factory in Kabul to produce apparels, despite numerous odds.
“Our sewing machines are both electric and handcranked given the unpredictable power availability in Kabul,” observed the designer who caters to expatriates in Kabul apart from the US market.
Takesh, whose family ended up in the US, in the aftermath of the Iranian revolution of 1979, has successfully fused fashion with an interest in central Asia.
Her association with Kabul began with a summer internship, while studying at a business school in California, when she used her newly acquired ‘teamwork’ skills to extract financial projection spreadsheets out of her clever classmates.
She won the grand prize at the Berkeley and Columbia business schools’ National Social Venture Competition for Best Blended Value Proposition for social and financial return on investment and literally the day after graduating, packed her bags and left for Kabul.
The company was created by Takesh in 2003 after the successful sales of her first collection in 2002 and winning the grand prize.
An avid traveller with a passionate and longstanding interest in Afghan art and society, Takesh has travelled to the region on numerous trips over the past several years.
The designer, who started to travel to the Gulf region only lately, is of the view that that countries here are ideal for cottage industry type fashion houses.
“There are no messy trends in the media and you have a great market,” added Takesh. |
