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“Bangladeshi tailors, so called designers, need for education”
Samiya Yesmin
BRAC University

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Although both make clothes, then why is one called a seamstress and other a
designer? Why is one paid modestly while the other commands extravagant fees? Why foreign
designers are internationally famous, when Bangladeshi “designers” are not even nationally
known? It seems that all Bangladeshis know nothing about the first, a lot about the second, and
yet have no idea about the third? While there is no lack of boutique/ designer houses all over
Bangladesh, yet we can’t even name one real Bangladeshi designer! Why? We are actually
talking about a major industry that not only forms a major part of Bangladesh’s economy but
also affects all of our lives and yet we do not even know its basis. We have plentiful people who
know only the technicalities related to making clothes, yet have no vision, no theme, no idea
and no inspiration about trends or seasonal changes or fabrics or pattern design difference,
nothing, with only mass production and profit as their goal, makes what Bangladesh has tailors
not designers, a major reason why Bangladesh’s Fashion Industry has fallen even before it
could rise. (184)
Bangladesh is a new forty year old country which has been so involved in trying
to establish its identity, roots and culture, that has left her at a standstill state where there is no
space to form new traditions. Her style of clothes has always been rich colorful and floral “desi”
designs on kamizes, sharees, panjabis and fotuas, which has remained mostly unchanged since
1971. This has lead Bangladesh’s fashion industry to be nothing but garment factories. The fact
that fashion is not only one’s heritage is what people in this industry have to realize. I ask you,
what is fashion? Is it not a versatile innovative and creative platform which not just
represents our clothes but also the time that we live in? Bangladeshis have been wearing the
same pattern of clothes for generations after generations, what happened to time changes? Why
are we still living in the past? Now that a very few Bangladeshis are realizing the need, having
the cravings for changes, trends, uniqueness….What are they doing? Coping and following the
Indians and the Pakistanis! Disgraceful! How is that being us? How is that representing our
culture? One hand we are holding on to our “desi” heritage so tight and other hand we copy
other nations! What we are doing is utterly unacceptable! We Bangladeshis need to reform
ourselves and create our new identity in this era, I am not saying we should forgo our traditional
clothing of sharees, panjabis, kamizes and fotuas, instead come up with new and unique patterns
and techniques so that the world can know us for who we are, what our desire of the new and

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the interesting is, to be able to enjoy the diversity and to break away from the uniformity.
Where we create will be the next new thing, making us the trend setters and not the followers.
By doing such we will not only be creating new trends and leaving our footprints in the world’s
fashion history, but also be giving the world a chance to follow our lead and embrace our
beautiful culture. We need to create fashion trends to break the monotony we have set ourselves
in. Thus being able to express our culture as a fashion anyone and everyone should follow.
Designers invent so shall we! (381)
Indeed to be an artist one needs to know some basic skills, technicalities and have some
patience and love for the work. However as Socrates had asked Phaedrus whether someone who
to know the individual techniques of medicine is a doctor, or someone who knows how to
produce the highest and the lowest notes is a musician as talked about on “what makes a good
designer”. These rhetorical questions do point out that technicalities related to the job are only
preliminaries to learning a discipline- but most importantly an artisan must also know the when
and the why in order to be successful. Artists create art to quench the human psychological
thirst for beauty, for change, for expression of self. Thus without the knowledge of when an art
would be acceptable and liked by the general public, a designer cannot be successful or good
enough designer. After all when one makes the clothes, one is doing it to appease the people.
Hence the key to successfully design, a designer must be capable of knowing how to do the job
to create the theme and to create one’s own identity as a designer. To design for one’s own self
does not make a person a designer, as said on “what makes you a designer?” after all what will
be the point of creating something that the world would never see or like?! A designer creates
for the people. This understanding of human psychological need has now has now become a
very important prerequisite to become a designer. The understanding of the world’s needs is
what drives any designer to not only be creative, innovative and varied. This is why seasonal
changes are necessary in fashion. Bangladeshi fashion industry’s lack of understanding and
appeasing such psychological need has lead it to have a lack of designers and yet be plentiful of
tailors, people with technical skills only. As time goes on the world’s psychological state
changes, these changes are being correctly deciphered by foreign fashion designers, thus we see
a similarity in their seasonal collections. It is the similar inspiration of the general psychological
need which tends to influence that particular season leads to the seasonal similarity of theme. It

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is what Bangladesh’s fashion industry needs, people with the capability to interpret world
themes besides all their technical skills. (387)
Another factor which indicates the lack of designer products in Bangladesh is when we
see the very similar product, only with the slightest difference like colour, all over the market.
Mass production- a fashion blasphemy- is the backbone of Bangladesh’s fashion industry.
Designers do tend to have broad appeal but does not mean they serve the mass market! Designer
products could not be anything but so affluent and uniquely theirs that just by looking at one
piece we can say exactly which designer made it. This is what represents a designer- his
trademark-the thing only he can offer to the world. As Such a comment was made in “what
makes a designer”. It is not like designers produce only one piece of one design, which would
be uneconomical and too much hard work. Yes, designers do produce more than one piece of the
same design like a maximum of 5 pieces, not 505!! It is the style, design, quality of the designer
product which makes them so famous. This is what Bangladesh’s fashion industry lacks-
uniqueness, which makes everyone in Bangladesh seem like they are wearing uniforms, every
time a new trend comes around. Without real designers, the loss of vogue in a country is beyond
disreputable. It is as if we are like beheaded chickens running around circles, without knowing
our own identities as if time has lost all its meaning. (232)
For ages designers have been known to make clothes only, but now-a-days when
everything has already been done before, designers are trying every possible way to make their
product unique. Now they will stop at nothing to express themselves. Creativity has no bounds,
no limits, and no restrictions. Fashion has now become the best way to express oneself.
Designing is now about everything done outside the box, kept as a secret tighter than chastity
belt and when the time comes, unveiled with a bang louder than nuclear, that the whole world
stops to stare. Fashion no longer stops at the dress or the colour, no it is about creating the
complete look. Starting from nail colour to shoes to pants, hose, skirt, bag, dress, belt, jewellery,
makeup, eye colour to the last strand of hair on our body is now scrutinized for perfection,.
Every part is highly prioritized to complete the look. This creation of complete idea of
everything, in mind, with no bounds to creativity is what so called designers of Bangladesh, need
to work on. Gone are the days when creating only a new dress or pattern was it. To make

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everything uniquely theirs foreign designers are now inventing new fabrics, purses, jewellery,
shoes, and all sorts of accessories, which become their trade mark, to go with their dresses. Such
complete looks are not available in Bangladesh, thus any designer to provide it would become an
instant hit as the market is completely yours to take. As agreed on “what makes fashion trend?”
inspiration for that season is very important to designers to create, it also drives us the public to
buy and follow that fashion. With Bangladesh’s abundant cheap natural resources and cheap
labour, it would be so easy for designers to go crazy with creativity. Nonetheless this has not
happened, maybe because Bangladesh being a relatively new 40-year-old country, her people
were not ready or have not had the time to think about their fashion state, as they have been busy
building a new country. And now the time has come to change this major neglect, to reform and
to create, live and breathe change. Fashion is indeed an integral part of our aesthetic and realistic
lives. So why should we spend prolific amounts of money on other culture’s or country’s fashion
wears and not create our own?? It is time for the first step, for the initiatives to be taken;
Bangladesh is now ready for its own fashion industry. (414)
Thus with no vision, no creative inventiveness nor any seasonal differences, the
so called “designers” of Bangladesh are really nothing but tailors, who not only mass produce
but also copy and make similar designs. And these are the reasons why Bangladesh has no real
fashion industry, just garment factories. If it were only about looking good and matching colours,
then everyone would have been in this industry. Like Shakespeare said “Fair is foul, foul is fair”
we have to ignore this ignorance and build the real thing with a hard fist. (92)

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Reference List:
1. Chance, Fluff (2009, August 29). What makes a designer
Retrived from: http://emperorsoldclothes.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-makes-
designer.html
2. McKaig, Angie (2004, August 20). What makes you a designer
Retrived from:
http://www.angiemckaig.com/archives/2004/08/20/what_makes_you_a_designer/
3. Chance, Fluff (2009, August 29). What makes a designer
Retrived from: http://emperorsoldclothes.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-makes-
designer.html
4. Chance, Fluff (2009, August 29). What makes a successful designer
Retrived from: http://lisasabin-wilson.com/what-makes-a-successful-designer
5. Chance, Fluff (2009, August 29). “What makes a designer”
Retrived from: http://emperorsoldclothes.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-makes-
designer.html
6. Chance, Fluff (2009, August 29) “What makes a designer”
Retrived from: http://emperorsoldclothes.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-makes-
designer.html