By Israel Becomes Muay Maliha Rehman
Humayun Alamgir has so many stories to tell.
Over a career that extends nearly two decades, he has collected a vast number of colourful anecdotes. There is the quintessential Karachi success story, of how he started off as a fledgling menswear designer with barely any know-how and built his brand, one store at a time. There are the star-studded recollections, the interactions with VJs, singers and actors who have become synonymous with his brand image. There are the career highs, when he dressed entire entourages of artists at awards shows. And there are the candid confessions, of times when he felt low but then picked himself up and forged on.
I sit across from Humayun at his studio on Karachi’s Tariq Road and my capable cellphone records these stories so that I can transcribe them later. The studio traverses several floors, with men’s formals rubbing shoulders with casual-wear, shoes and accessories lined up in a neat procession on well-lit shelves. It’s a new store, Humayun tells me, replacing the older one which used to be across the road.
“My regular clientele usually still prefers to come to Zamzama, from where I first started out,” he says. “But Tariq Road, with so many varied options at different price ranges available in every street, offers its own potential and challenges. The traffic that this area gets is incredible.”
The stories that I find the most inspiring are those of his resilience.
Looking at Humayun Alamgir today — with a brand that is a popular choice for menswear, a well-known face in the fashion sphere, with stores across the country and celebrities flocking to his studio for every major event — many may not be aware of the struggles he has faced.
There have been quite a few but, in the long run, they have also proven to be stepping stones for Humayun. At some point in our conversation, he tells me, “Every time I suffered a setback, it made me want to do more, improve my designs, build my business. There were times when fashion councils refused to include my collections at their fashion weeks, times when my collections were criticised. It only drove me to work harder, spend an extra two hours at work, innovate every year, do better.
Nearly two decades into his career, self-taught designer Humayun Alamgir is now more able to convert negatives into positives. Despite occasional setbacks and frequent rejections from the fashion elite, he is still willing to experiment, explore and expand. More importantly, he continues to smile and have faith in himself
“There was a time when I would be obsessed with getting nominated at an awards ceremony and would be heartbroken when I was ignored. The organisers would remember me when they would need options for dressing celebrities for the red carpet, but would forget to invite me. I came to terms with these attitudes over time and chose to focus on sales rather than awards.”
Stepping stones
Humayun stopped waiting for the world to realise his potential and simply bet on himself — the gamble has paid off well.
He now has four stores in Karachi, one each in Lahore and Faisalabad, and a thriving online business. His brand’s raison d’etre is primarily menswear but the umbrella has also extended to fragrances, men’s accessories such as handbags, shoes, watches, jewellery and, most recently, women’s wear. Tweaking his designs, dabbling with new collections and adding oomph through celebrity endorsements, Humayun has become a name to be reckoned with, especially in men’s fashion.
The walls of the studio in which we meet are testament to Humayun’s journey. Frames run along the walls showing images from different fashion shows and newspaper clippings commenting on his work. There is a much younger Humayun at his first fashion show with Fahad Mustafa, also making his debut as a celebrity showstopper on the ramp. There is a picture of him at the opening of his store in Lahore. There are magazine covers where he has been featured.
This archive of images is also testament to the evolution of his design signature. The Humayun of yore certainly had a penchant for bling, adding in bright splashes of red here and there, teetering now and again towards the over-the-top, experimenting with different techniques. The love for experimenting is still there but his aesthetic now also extends towards more subtle embellishments, subdued colour palettes and a judicious usage of glitter. Has he improved as a designer?
“Yes, but I still have a long way to go,” he says. “I have learnt a lot over the years and introduced new ranges to my brand. The one principle that I have stood by is that I never lie to my customer. I won’t lie about the fabric that I use and, if my staff makes a mistake, I will admit to it and apologise to the customer. I think they appreciate this.”
Another major contributor to Humayun’s success is his salesmanship. While most renowned designers prefer to take a backseat, letting their staff deal with long meetings with customers, Humayun enjoys interacting with his customers. He smiles.
“Sometimes I think that my being there ends up boosting sales. Customers may like the clothes but, then, they also like me. Often, they like what I am wearing and order that design. In Ramazan especially, I wear a new design every day when I visit my stores in Karachi. I am basically modelling my own clothes and people frequently buy the design that I am wearing.”
A zero-to-hero story
Even back when he started out — a young boy aspiring to be a cricketer and stumbling into designing while he was recovering from an injury — it was Humayun’s wide circle of friends and fondness for ‘modelling’ his own clothes that spurred on his career.
We rewind back to one of his stories — a Karachi-based classic zero-to-hero story right out of a movie. It’s not that I am saying that Humayun was once a ‘zero’, but he did start off his designing career simply out of passion, without any formal training.
“Back in 2006, my cousin and I started making men’s clothes, using money that we had earned working for a mobile phone company,” he recalls. “We would visit fabric markets such as Rabi Centre, buy fabric, get samples stitched and then replicated, and we would sell the clothes off a rack that we had set up in a room at home.
“We sold really well to our family and friends. We would wear our own designs to university and our friends would give us orders. Some of my understanding of design came from my father, who used to export silk nightsuits. Having visited his factory every weekend since childhood, I understood the importance of not letting a thread or a button go out of place.”
He continues: “Within a year, we had tripled our earnings and were doing very well. A friend of mine, Raza Moosavee, connected me with VJs working for different music channels and I started dressing them up. My cousin Babar and I decided to open a store in Zamzama. We called our brand ‘H n B’ and our launch went very well, even though it rained that day.
“We just opened up our store, without hiring a salesman, a cleaner or even buying a bill book!” he says. “Every morning, we would visit our tailor who lived in Gurumandir and learn a bit about cutting and pattern-making from him. Then, around 11am, we would reach our Zamzama store, sweep the floors and set the shop up. At night, we would visit the tailor again and assign him the orders that we had received for the day.
“It went on like this for eight months and, then, my cousin and I had a falling out and we parted ways. I wanted to keep the store and, over the span of two years, I changed the name on the billboard outside to Humayun Alamgir.”
Slowly, Humayun’s journey evolved and business mushroomed. Building a business, though, in Karachi’s volatile landscape comes with its unique hurdles.
“Once, I was visiting the tailor when I nearly got kidnapped,” he says matter-of-factly. “It made me realise that travelling back and forth for such a long distance every day was not safe. The very next week, an order placed by two brothers for their sister’s wedding got delayed. The tailor was not picking up the phone and the family was crowded in my store on the day of the wedding, waiting for their clothes.
“I was panicking, wondering if I should just hand them my father’s credit card and tell them to buy their clothes from elsewhere, when the tailor finally surfaced and gave them their clothes. That’s the last day that I worked with that tailor. I decided that I needed to set up a stitching unit of my own, close to my store.”
Humayun’s first stitching unit, set up in the back alleys behind Karachi’s Zamzama, had to be shut down after a few months due to skirmishes with the locals living there. Another stitching unit, very close to the Zamzama store, was set up. It remains operational to date.
Next came expansion. A store was opened in Lahore. Much later — around 2014 — he expanded to women’s wear. “The women’s wear outlet was doing well but my mother used to manage the store and she was once sitting there when some men with arms came in — thugs, who regularly collected bhatta [protection money] from shop-owners in Zamzama. I decided that it was not safe and I closed down the store.” The women’s wear line has now been resumed, with Humayun’s sister at the helm.
“Initially, I opened stores and it was only later that I decided that I needed to have studios — spaces where customers could sit and have tea while placing their orders, and where they could see an extensive range of designs. In my very first Zamzama store, when a groom-to-be would come with his family to see wedding-wear, I would have to pull the shop’s shutters half-down temporarily. There was just not enough space to fit in the family, my own salesmen as well as walk-in customers. Rack space was also limited. Summer- and winter-wear would constantly need to be interchanged because we didn’t have enough space.”
A new ‘studio’ with a basement, located right across the first Zamzama store, solved that problem, according to Humayun. “People could see all the designs. They could see the unstitched fabric. They could sit at leisure and decide what they wanted to order. It was a gamechanger.”
Highs and lows
Running parallel to his business’ growth, were consistent endorsements by celebrities. From the very onset of his career, Humayun gravitated towards celebrities and star-power became synonymous with his brand. For some time, once-VJ and model Wiqar Ali Khan was his brand ambassador. According to him, sales allegedly quadrupled when actor Muneeb Butt wore Humayun Alamgir at different events of his much-publicised wedding. One remembers a Fashion Pakistan Week (FPW) show when a plethora of celebrities had danced on the catwalk in a Humayun Alamgir show.
“I was criticised for that show,” recalls Humayun, “but the clothes sold extremely well. I have participated in the Hum Network’s Bridal Couture Week [BCW] 10 times but my experiences with the Fashion Pakistan Council-led Fashion Pakistan Week have been bittersweet.
“From 2014 to 2016, I would apply for participation and would get rejected by the council. In 2017, I had applied, had paid the participation fee and was on the verge of getting rejected when, at the very last minute, they told me that I could be part of the line-up. Recently, I talked to Maheen Khan and Deepak Perwani, who had led the council at the time, and they told me that my portfolio had never reached them and that it had gotten rejected by others working beneath them!” He shrugs.
Regardless, despite snubs by the fashion councils and awards ceremonies and the critical reviews, Humayun kept the faith. “I just kept working on my business, improving my designs. I decided that I wanted my stores to be one-stop shops and I started expanding towards accessories such as fragrances etc.”
His career took a new direction during the coronavirus pandemic. The dearth of models prompted Humayun to model his clothes himself. He had lost weight, so he easily fit into the designs and saved money on models. He laughs, “It worked well. To date, some of the bestsellers on my website are the clothes that I model, usually all-black designs.”
Some time later, he got interested in ‘transitional’ videos that were trending on TikTok. “It was so fascinating — the way a person would swirl and transition to a new outfit. A young videographer reached out to me on Instagram and said that he wanted to create videos with me, and we started working together.” Lo and behold, Humayun had entered his ‘influencer’ phase.
“Throughout my career, I have been willing to experiment, explore, work with new people. Up-and-coming actors have made their catwalk debuts in my fashion shows, enterprising young students have worked with me on different projects. When I went for Umrah in 2019, it brought about a spiritual change in me. I think that I am now able to convert negatives more easily into positives and I stay grounded. I don’t judge people and connect with everyone around me. It’s given me a lot of peace.”
He smiles. Humayun does smile a lot.
Nearly two decades into his career, despite occasional setbacks, he continues to have faith in himself and is still excited by what he does. The stories he tells may have their highs and lows, but they tend to have happy endings.
Published in Dawn, ICON, July 6th, 2025