At Panorama Mundi, tucked inside the fashion capital of the world, Collected XX has made history as the first Pakistani clothing brand to hold a permanent physical display in Paris, marking a shift from temporary showcases to a sustained presence that speaks to both visibility and cultural authorship.
For decades, Pakistan has powered global fashion quietly, its looms, its embroiderers, its dyers, and its karigars working behind the seams of international labels. Pakistani artisans have long been the makers, the producers, the invisible hands whose skill and labor were essential to global fashion, yet whose names and stories remained largely untold. Collected XX shifts that narrative by stepping into Paris not to imitate existing fashion trends, but to represent Pakistan on its own terms, fully authored, fully credited, and fully contextualized.
The brand’s roots stretch across Swat, Kasur, Multan, Hyderabad, Bahawalpur, and beyond, regions where handloom weaving, natural dyeing, and master-stitch techniques have been refined over centuries. But Collected XX is not nostalgia dressing itself up as heritage. Each garment is examined, treated, and reconstructed, a process more akin to textile conservation than traditional fashion production. This approach reflects the label’s broader mission, positioning itself as a textile art conservation forum that preserves, honors, and contemporizes South Asian craft.
Collected XX is about curation. Each piece is conceived as a collectable, unique and deliberate, not mass-produced or replicated. Vintage textile panels are transformed into contemporary silhouettes, allowing South Asian craft languages to exist within forms that speak to global audiences. These are not reproductions; they are thoughtful conversations between time periods, between tradition and modernity, between heritage and innovation.
The founders are emblematic of a new generation reshaping Pakistani fashion’s global face. Co-founder Hamzah Asad’s relationship with Paris began not with a commercial objective but with research. Funded by the French Embassy in Pakistan, his textile residency traced the journey of the paisley motif from its South Asian and Persian origins through trade and colonial exchange into European fashion.
During this period, he studied how houses such as Yves Saint Laurent romanticized Eastern ornamentation in collections like Ballets Russes (1976), and how contemporary brands like Hermès recontextualized the motif for modern luxury audiences. For Collected XX, Paris was a site of inquiry, authorship, and accountability. The residency sharpened the brand’s mission to reclaim South Asian textile histories and re-center the artisan within the narrative, acknowledging the labor, memory, and lineage behind each piece.
Co-founder Nael Hafeez brings a complementary perspective. Active in the South Asian music industry since 2019, he has shaped creative direction for emerging artists, led brand collaborations, and worked as a stylist featured in Forbes, GQ Australia, Variety, Dawn, and more. At Collected XX, he oversees brand strategy and campaign direction, ensuring that the garments do not merely carry history, but engage dynamically with contemporary aesthetics and cultural fluency.
This new wave of Pakistani designers understands duality and complexity. They know how to speak to local audiences and global buyers with equal sophistication, preserving dying techniques while translating them into contemporary silhouettes that are globally relevant. They are fluent in social media storytelling and intergenerational craft, bridging the gap between tradition and modernity with intention and care.
Collected XX at Panorama Mundi represents more than a retail milestone. It signals Pakistan stepping into the global fashion ecosystem as a visible, credited, and culturally grounded contributor, moving beyond its historical role as a silent manufacturer. It situates hand-loomed, naturally dyed, and ethically sourced textiles within Paris with clarity and context, providing the craft with a permanent platform to be seen, studied, and appreciated.
Perhaps most importantly, it reflects a younger generation of designers who refuse to choose between tradition and modernity. Instead, they reconstruct both, allowing heritage techniques to converse with contemporary fashion dialogues, creating garments that are at once culturally resonant, globally fluent, and aesthetically compelling. This moment is not just about Collected XX or even a single brand.
It marks a broader recalibration in how the world sees Pakistani fashion. The country’s craft, which has long been invisible on the global stage, is now being authored, curated, and presented with intention.
Pakistan isn’t behind the seams anymore, it’s on display in Paris in full force.