Beyond Beautiful: Pakistan’s first ever beauty expo unveils

Catwalk Event Management and Productions, an infamous event management company, introduced its upcoming project called “Beyond Beautiful”– amongst celebrities, socialites, entrepreneurs and beauty bloggers on August 31, at the Deli, Karachi. Beyond Beautiful is going to be Pakistan’s first ever beauty expo and the aim of the project is to bring beauty and glamour under one roof.

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How do most people define beauty?

By physical appearance? By one’s behaviour? By one’s speech? By evaluating how much high-maintenance they are? By evaluating how much glamorous they are?

Well, we probably have always misunderstood what actually beauty is. It is not about just about being beautiful, in fact, it involves a lot more.

Beyond Beautiful is a platform where it is going to be easier for people to comprehend the true meaning of beauty and being beautiful. The project Beyond Beautiful, mainly conducted by Frieha Altaf, CEO/Creative Head at Catwalk Event Management, aims to spread awareness, educate consumers and provide information about the available options with a mission to not just avail one beauty brand, but the entire beauty and personal care industry. The core team members are Alia Fawad, Faisal Kapadia of Mindmap and Nubain Ali CEO at Wardha Saleem with extensive experience at L Oreal and FPW.

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The press conference was attended by recently appointed Global Ambassador for PAGE and actress Aamina Sheikh, Fareshteh Aslam of Talking Point, Safinaz Muneer of Design House Sana Safinaz, Dr. Tasneem Nakhoda of Laser Soft and Actress/Producer Zeba Bakhtiar, who are also members of the ‘Beyond Beautiful’ Advisory Board which will continue to grow. Other media persons who attended include Sarwat Gillani, Zhalay Sarhadi, Saba Ansari, Nadia Hussain, Peng, Saeeda Mandviwala, Neelo Allawala, Sadaf Arshad, Sajid and Altaf. Beauty brand distributors Ghazanfar Rauf and Mohsin Feroze were also present.

Frieha Altaf says,

“For us, ‘Beyond Beautiful’ is not just an event; it is a movement to celebrate and enhance beauty. I’m very excited to introduce the first of its kind beauty expo and shows. I have always enjoyed my role as a pioneer in the fashion industry and I think this annual event will bring great brands and their capabilities to the forefront as well as introduce the latest beauty trends in the global market to the consumer as well as connect all these businesses on one platform.”

We asked on-board members about how this event is going to be any different than the masterclasses, beauty workshops and seminars that usually take place. Upon that, Frieha Altaf said,

“Beyond Beautiful is an industry need. The beauty industry is about to flex its muscle and needs to get organised to max and showcase its potential. Beyond Beautiful is the platform to get together and get with it on all the global and local trends”

And we cannot agree more. We do know how difficult it is to get our hands on international beauty brands because they are not a usual part of our market. Also, this event is not only going to get international brands get in the market but give a chance to local brands to have a prestigious platform to showcase themselves along global beauty lines.

Upon us asking the on-board members about whether this beauty expo will help colourism to vanish from Pakistan, or at least aware people about the self-acceptance and feeling confident in their own skin, Aamina Sheikh said,

“This has been a problem in south Asia for a long time. However, now we are finally seeing brown beauties with gorgeous melanin rich skins taking over many beauty and glamour platforms. It will definitely take time to spread awareness about it among general public, but it is not impossible. Events like ‘Beyond Beautiful’ are surely going to help with that.”

Zhalay Sarhadi, on the same topic, said,

“This problem is not only persistent in Pakistan for a long time but many other countries as well. This is because the differences of beauty standards which people of different countries have set. Nevertheless, beauty standards change by time. Once, big lips were literally considered a sign of repulsion while thin, smaller lips were a sign of beauty. Nowadays, every other person is getting lip fillers in order to achieve a fuller pout. So it’s all about how you look naturally, how you feel about yourself and whether you are comfortable in your own skin or not.”

It was also discussed that glamour and beauty industry has recently evolved a lot, internationally and in Pakistan as well. Still, no such thing as trends are set by anyone. Frieha Altaf said,

“Beyond Beautiful” is a platform where hair and makeup trends can be set. We see gorgeous editorial looks on magazines everyday. We see unique looks on runway models, but such looks, makeup, hair don’t get trendy as much as they can.”

Catwalk’ CSR division – Catwalk Cares will help empower beauty and education by sharing techniques and use of materials along with changing lives by giving out self-grooming sessions and scholarships.

The event is scheduled to be held from 25th -25th January, 2019. The event will showcase creativity for personal care products from make-up, hair and skin care, nails and fragrance for both men and women. With so much potential in the beauty industry and hardly any focused platform available in Pakistan, there is an opportunity to introduce a platform completely focusing on developing the beauty industry in Pakistan and making it a player at an international level.