AURORA: What subjects did you take at the University of British Columbia?
ZAIN AHMAD: Political science and philosophy.
A: What then made you go into fashion and design?
ZA: In the beginning, if I’m being very honest, it was quite accidental. By the summer of my third year, I saw my peers landing six-figure job offers and here I was with absolutely empty bags in my hands. I remember taking a trip to LA and noticing that a lot of the high-end clothes available in the boutiques were either made in Pakistan or Bangladesh, and it struck me that these countries were manufacturing for big brands but didn’t hold any ownership of the brands. This made me think that some of the best footballs in the world are made in Pakistan, but the brand is Adidas or Nike. These thoughts were sort of simmering in my head. However, it was never the case that I thought I was going to start a fashion brand. It was more of a question that I needed to start a business of my own because I did not want to work for someone else or do a 9-to-5 job.
So, I went back to Pakistan with the idea of buying and selling shawls internationally, which would have been a horrible idea now that I think about it because of the different factors involved: scale, competition and the fact that you can’t add much value to just a shawl. Then my business partner and I had the idea of working with T-shirts and hoodies and adding fabric to them that would quintessentially be from this part of the world. It was a very start-up route. It was about taking a minimum viable product and testing it in the market. Rastah grew from there.
It was very accidental, and it was through that accidental journey that I discovered my love for storytelling. I noticed that my design process involved a lot of writing. I would write what I envisioned.
We started very small, with just one T-shirt and a hoodie, but slowly it turned into a collection. And now here we are. In September, we are going to release a collection that will have about 100 to 120 pieces, and some of those pieces will take about 300 to 500 hours to make. My journey was very accidental. It was purely the pursuit of entrepreneurship and wanting to start my own business.
A: What happened next?
ZA: I went back to Vancouver because I still had a few courses to complete. So, it was all taking place in my apartment. We had a bunch of T-shirts and hoodies, and my business partner and I had one goal. To go out every single day and talk to as many people as possible and convince them to buy a T-shirt and a hoodie. It was literally Sales 101. In the beginning, we found our customers on the street. Or else, someone would be following us on Instagram, and if they liked or made a comment, we would send them a message telling them the whole story of the brand. It was very guerrilla-style marketing.
A: Was the social media presence a major factor at the beginning?
ZA: Yes, and the context is very important. This was when Facebook was dying and Instagram was coming up, but a lot of businesses did not see this. But we were able to capitalise on the growing popularity of Instagram. We were young and understood the platform.
A: At what point did you decide to pitch the brand at the higher end of the price spectrum, unlike other Pakistani brands?
ZA: It was as early as our second collection. I could sort of see what was going to happen. We would create this brand, other people would come in, and we would be forced to compete on price, and in doing so, lose whatever exclusivity we had built for the brand. One way to prevent this was through pricing. The other aspect was that I had envisioned that the brand would heavily incorporate artisanship in our work and the goal was to be able to price in the craftspeople who worked with us.
As it then turned out, we had numerous competitors call up our block printers or our weavers and ask them to join their team, but they simply refused because they were being paid more than what they were being offered by others.
Over the last three years, we have increased our prices by 25 to 30%. My goal is to maintain the exclusivity around the brand; if we don’t, we will not be able to build an international presence as a contemporary brand. Fast forward from 2018, today there are so many Rastah copycats and had we been in that same price bucket, our margins would have been squeezed and we would have had to compete on price. I wanted to go in the other direction. This did not go well with my business partners. I was trying to convince them to sell hoodies locally and internationally for $300. It was an absurd idea back in 2018.
A: What gave you the belief that you could sell at a higher price?
ZA: After the first collection, we had about 4,000 followers on Instagram – not that many, but still something. But we realised that we would lose a lot of these customers because they had bought from us at a different price point and now, we were going to sell a hoodie for $300. It was a big, big risk. Effectively, some of that audience stayed, but a lot of them went away. The reason I took this gamble is because I could see that in Pakistan, although there was a segment that had the purchasing power – people were spending between Rs 150,000 and 200,000 on lawn and formal wear – the intent was not there. So, the idea was to go international. A $300 hoodie within the contemporary landscape of international fashion is not high. And our product was different; it was well-made and interesting. The strategy was to create a name internationally, which could then lead to a funnel-down effect in Pakistan.
A: Did that happen?
ZA: Yes. When we started, about one or two percent of our sales were from Pakistan. Today, our Pakistani sales are the fastest-growing in any of our markets: the UK, Canada, and the US. Sales in Pakistan are now between 35 and 40%.
A: In Pakistan, are you tapping into that tiny percentage of people who have excess purchasing power?
ZA: This is what I thought until we released our Core Collection, which consists simply of a T-shirt with the Rastah logo screen printed over it. The T-shirt, by the way, is very well made. We obtain the yarn from a specific mill and it is more expensive to make than a regular T-shirt. We sell them in Pakistan for Rs 18,000 to 19,000.
I keep a keen eye on who is buying them and tabs on where the deliveries are going – and they are not just going to DHA and Model Town. The product is becoming very aspirational. People are willing to save up in order to buy that T-shirt.
A: The most visible part of your success is having celebrities wear your brand. How did this breakthrough come about?
ZA: In the beginning, it was down to luck. The first big celebrity to wear Rastah was French Montana. The way it happened was that my business partner was friendly with the owner of a shop in Queens. He told my business partner that Montana would be coming to his shop and he wanted to present him with a gift and could he give him a Rastah jacket? So, we gave one to the owner and Montana ended up wearing it. Pakistani audiences went crazy because a Western celebrity was wearing our clothes. Part of it has to do with the fact that we still seek external validation; we are still stuck in a post-colonial hangover.
Until then, I had not thought about celebrity placement. I thought it wasn’t possible. But when Montana wore our jacket, I realised the impact this can have – and not just because a celebrity was wearing one of our jackets, but because the celebrity was wearing a Pakistani brand. So, we were like, okay, we need to lean into these celebrities and get them to wear our clothes. The first time was all luck and for a long time, it didn’t happen because we didn’t realise how hard it is to do that. Then we had Anil Kapoor wearing our clothes, which again was very organic. His son saw us on Instagram; he liked the clothes and reached out. We sent him the clothes and somehow the jacket ended up in Anil’s closet and he wore it.
The same thing happened with Karan Johar and then Riz Ahmed. By then, we realised we needed a proper plan because this was leading to sales. So, we got a celebrity showroom in LA; they have connections with stylists and managers, and this improves the chances of these celebrities wearing your clothes. What people don’t know is that for every celebrity that wears Rastah, there are 50 pitches that failed.
A: In terms of regular marketing activities, how consistently do you do this and is it mainly on Instagram?
ZA: We do a lot of digital advertising, although I have told my team we need to cut our spending by about 50%. I don’t want my business to largely rely on advertising. It can be dangerous if your marketing ends up coming only from advertising. Advertising is very expensive and we are a lean business. We are trying to figure out new ways to acquire customers. We do a lot of pop-ups in New York and London, and they are great for building awareness. Another way is to create high-quality organic content that is shareable. This usually happens on a personal brand level and I am trying to build my own personal brand because, at the end of the day, I am the face of the brand, and people are more interested in relating to the owner of the brand, especially Gen Z. Creator-led brands allow audiences to see the human version of the brand, which makes them connect with the brand more.
ZA: We don’t have an agency. I think the days of ad agencies are dying. Unless you are a big corporation, you don’t have the bandwidth to go out and find the right talent, so typically you pay an agency. But for a lean team like ours, it’s easier to collaborate with different creatives within the Pakistani industry. For each campaign, we may work with a new photographer, art director or production designer; this gives a unique perspective to each campaign.
A: You said one of the reasons you decided to price yourself at the higher end was to ensure you could compensate your artisans more adequately. How difficult is it to find such people, given that the younger generations might prefer to work in factories where the remuneration is better?
ZA: I think the ecosystem is better than it was about a decade ago. Along with Rastah, other brands have gone into traditional clothing and for a lot of artisans and craftspeople, their stock is going up in the sense that the value of their work is more appreciated. I don’t think it is close to the level of what is happening in India. India is in a different league in terms of compensating their craftspeople and artisans because they have the kind of infrastructure and mechanism that protects them, which we don’t have in Pakistan. India has huge vantage points towards the European markets and big luxury houses like Dior and Louis Vuitton are working with Indian craft studios. I think in Pakistan, Rastah has shed light on their work.
For the longest time, this kind of workmanship wasn’t perceived to be cool, but this is changing. However, the next step requires an infrastructural framework to allow these artisans to flourish.
A: Do you see Rastah playing a role in further elevating their work?
ZA: We are doing whatever we can. We work with embroiders, weavers, block printers and painters. With our block printing team, we have been testing the idea of letting them put their original work on our website and use the brand’s name to command a higher markup and they keep all the money. Mr Aslam, one of our block printers, used to sell his tapestries for about Rs 5,000 to 8,000 (this was four or five years ago). On our website, his tapestries are selling for about $300-400 and he keeps all the money other than the transaction fees. As a result, the pieces he doesn’t sell on the website but sells locally have started commanding higher prices. It is important to make our artisans aware that their work is special and that there is an audience out there willing to pay higher prices.
A: Rastah is having a big moment, but moments come and go. How do you see the future of the brand panning out over the next decade? Are you looking at coming out with different product options or more accessible product categories?
ZA: We have started to produce variants that are more accessible. For example, the Core Collection, which I spoke about earlier. I also understand that in fashion, there is a window of opportunity that typically doesn’t last for more than a decade, after which things start to change. The brands that last for more than a decade are those that have built a strong community so that when that decade of relevance wanes, you still have a community you can take to the next chapter of growth.
A: You are only 29. How do you see your role evolving?
ZA: Right now, I have the role of creative director and CEO, but there will be a point in time when I will step back because I have always told myself that the day I have nothing more to share is the day I hang my hat as a creative director and let someone new come in. We typically see this with international brands, where they cycle through creative directors because they have to stay relevant. It is a concept that doesn’t exist in Pakistan because businesses are run in a different way.
My dream is for Rastah to be one of the biggest brands outside of Asia, not just South Asia.
Zain Ahmad was in conversation with Mariam Ali Baig. For feedback: aurora@dawn.com