ROYALTY & RIZWAN

He has dressed the very best. His client list is a veritable who's who. One that includes - the Late Princess Diana, Jemima Khan, Princess Sarvath of Jordan, the First Lady of Lisbon, the royalty of Jordan - the list goes on. His name rings a bell all the way from Paris to Milan to Karachi.

But one look at Rizwan Beyg - one of Pakistan's best known design exports - will put all fears of royalty and ivory tower attitudes at rest.

The man is grounded, blessed with a fabulous sense of humour and a genuine concern for all those around him.

Perhaps, it is the journey into the world of design that explains why his feet seem firmly planted on the ground. Often it takes lesser mortals with half the achievements to be flying right off terra firma.

His life reads like fiction itself. Like all scripted starts it began with the Asian parental aspiration of making a doctor out of their son. One dissection and Beyg decided this was a profession certainly not meant for the faint-hearted.

From there he drifted into architecture, going on to major in it. Lines, structure and planning in the sheer architectural sense though didn't draw him in.
And what started as a simple experiment with the ghar-ka-darzi (in-house tailor) brought out the hidden designer in him.

When fun comes infused with passion, it's virtually impossible for it to go unnoticed. Well, something like that happened for Beyg. His collection demanded attention and that's just what it got from a magazine of note. The rest as we all love to say, is history.

His first fashion show was held in 1989. Since then he has traversed to all parts of the globe rubbing shoulders with stars, royalty and celebrities.
Through his journeys both on and off the ramp, he has been credited with pretty much transforming the fashion silhouette of Pakistan. His collection may be called 'Limited Editions' but it is only limited by the sheer bounds of his creativity.

Beyg has been called Pakistan's "most effective ambassador for fashion", something I certainly wouldn't disagree with.

Apart from putting his best foot forward for fashion, he does his bit for charity, has helped establish Pakistan's Fashion Design Guild and among the various other things that he dabbles in, he also serves on the board of the Indus Valley of Arts and Architecture.

And Indus, it is that brings him to Singapore. He is here for 'Colours of the Indus' - a fashion show that has set out to raise money for the survivors of the deadly Kashmir earthquake.

An unforgettable cause, that is bound to be made unforgettable by Rizwan Beyg's sheer presence.