‘Beautiful thing’: Mohsin Naveed Ranjha, designer to Pakistan’s glitterati, finds fame in India

LAHORE: Renowned Pakistani fashion designer Mohsin Naveed Ranjha, whose bridal couture has gained popularity over the years in both his country and India, said Pakistani designers are popular across the border due to the shared culture and “attachments” that the people of the two nations enjoy. 

Pakistani fashion designers have garnered critical acclaim both domestically and internationally over the years. Known for their ability to fuse the traditional with the modern, they have collaborated with international celebrities and taken part in global fashion shows to showcase their products. 

Ranjha has treaded on a similar path ever since he founded the Mohsin Naveed Ranjha Studio in 2014. The brand offers an array of choices for both men and women in bridal couture, formal wear, and ready-to-wear clothes. Ranjha has designed dresses for Pakistani and Indian brides and even collaborated with Bollywood celebrities Ranveer Singh, Janhvi Kapoor, and Karan Aujla. 

His dresses are known for their traditional designs that are rooted in Eastern heritage, craftsmanship that involves intricate embroidery, and bold color palettes. 

For Ranjha, however, the key to success in the world of fashion lies in originality or as he says, “finding your own personality.”

“Finding your own personality, your own identity is the most important thing for any design studio,” Ranjha told Arab News recently.

He finds his in lotuses, elephants, peacocks, flora and fauna, key themes from the subcontinent’s Mughal era. 

“We try and stick to those themes because I think those are our [artistic] roots,” Ranjha explained. 

After pursuing his bachelor’s degree in fashion and textile, Ranjha founded his brand’s first outlet in Gujranwala in 2015. Fast forward eight years, he has opened outlets in Lahore, Karachi and even New York. The Pakistani fashion designer now has his sights set on branching out to London. 

In his quest to achieve something substantial in the world of fashion, Ranjha had his fair share of struggles though. His first batch of dresses was a “spectacularly bad one” that encountered a lot of flak.

“It had two to three pieces that were according to my choice, two to three pieces that were according to the market trends and two to three pieces were what I felt the media liked at the time,” Ranjha recalled.

His first shot at professional fashion design may not have been the ideal start Ranjha dreamed of but he does see the silver lining to it. Ranjha disliked his first collection but also realized that the ones he had designed in line with his tastes and choices, were the ones he disliked the least of the lot. 

“That night I decided that as long as I stay in this industry, I will only create designs that I personally like,” he recalled. 

As his products created a niche for themselves, Ranjha found international recognition when none other than Bollywood superstar Ranveer Singh collaborated with him. Singh wore Ranjha’s brand for the cover of Filmfare, Bollywood’s veritable gospel for film-related news. 

“The Ranveer Singh thing, I never imagined something like that could happen,” Ranjha said. 

Singh’s stylist Nitasha Gaurav followed Ranjha on Instagram, and the two got to talking. Filmfare and Singh got on board soon after. 

“It was an amazing experience,” the designer said about working with Singh. “First there were the mood boards, then the sketches, then we showed them [our ideas] and they approved things,” he said.

That collaboration was the major break he needed. Ranjha became an established brand in the world of fashion and in 2022, got to work with Bollywood diva Janhvi Kapoor. The actress, who is the daughter of the late Bollywood legend Sridevi, carried a tea pink outfit designed by him for a magazine shoot. In February 2023, Ranjha became the designer of choice for Indian rap sensation Karan Aujla and his wife, Palak Aujla.  

“[Aujla] is a very dear friend, we made four looks for him for [his] different wedding events,“ Ranjha said. “I love his music.”

The designer admits some people complain his dresses are too expensive, though prices for different items vary. The cheaper, unstitched collections are priced around Rs. 30,000 ($107.32) to bridal prices that can go as high as Rs. 500,000 ($1,788).

Ranjha, who has designed dresses for various Indian brides over the years, feels Pakistani designers are popular in India due to the shared culture and heritage that people of the two countries trace their roots from. 

“You know, people find attachments [across the border] in many ways,” he said. “People who live in India or Pakistan have relatives or forefathers [on the other side] so there’s still that connection. 

“It’s a beautiful thing.”