Banning Fashion Shows

By an Order dated 25 October 2003, the Ministry of Interior has, on the instructions of the Prime Minister of Pakistan, directed all hotels and officials to put an end to fashion shows. According to the Order, “It has been observed that different functions are organised under the garb of fashion shows at leading hotels of the provinces and [sic] federal Capital, which militate against our national culture and Islamic values. . . Such activities are not reflective either of our culture or heritage and subsequently paint the government in [sic] bad light.” Whatever the Prime Minister’s intentions, there are several legal problems with the Order. However, to fully grasp the ramifications of the Order, one needs to understand the various dimensions of the front on which the Prime Minister has sought fit to engage battle.

To my knowledge (which I concede, is limited in this area), fashion shows are more than, well, shows of fashion. They are opportunities for individual designers to showcase their work to an audience of consumers, and also act as an effective form of word-of-mouth advertising. Because of the scale of these events (which reflects the market demand for and the public’s acceptance of new styles and designs), they are often held in hotels. In some instances, if the designer is lucky enough to convince the rich and mighty, a fashion show might be held within the confines of well known historical and cultural sites (such as the Lahore Fort) or large private homes. Some art and fashion colleges hold fashion shows on their campuses. Lastly, one should not forget that fashion shows have, at least in Pakistan, developed an interesting characteristic of their own: they are also a welcome distraction for a population starved of entertainment. Often, fashion shows are organized as attractions to plays, dinners, product launches and other media events. In some cases, noteworthy charities will attract donors by promising a fashion show as part of an evening of fundraising.

The fashion industry is also a highly lucrative commercial sector of the Pakistani economy. The commercial aspect of the fashion industry has, in fact, won it affinity with this and previous governments. Why else would this and other governments lavish praise on how revenue and jobs generated by the fashion industry line the State’s coffers? Why else would this and other governments openly support the idea of fashion education (I cite the rise the number of fashion education institutions in the recent years as evidence in support)? That said, the logic behind supporting fashion education and praising the revenue the industry generates while condemning fashion shows boggles the mind. Can one imagine the government supporting medical education while banning clinics and hospitals?

Because one cannot expect swathes of cotton or silk to walk about and sell themselves, new designs and styles of clothing and accessories are, by virtue of necessity, revealed to the consumer audience by young men (with the exception of Tariq Amin) and women hired specifically as (for lack of a better expression) clothes horses. Now, somewhere in this framework, the government claims it can see immorality. After all, the Order itself states that “Such activities are not reflective of our culture or heritage . . .” Yet the Order does not elaborate on what these activities are. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that the government has not taken umbrage against fashion shows per se, but that it is the participation of women as models in fashion shows which it find objectionable. If this is so, then the Order is guilty of discriminating against women on the basis of sex alone, which is against rights granted to every citizen of this country by the very Constitution the Prime Minister recently exhorted all Pakistanis (after Javed Hashmi’s arrest) to respect.

However, I digress. From this brief description of the dimensions posed by fashion shows, the following rights (which are by no means exhaustive) can be deduced: The Constitutional rights of the designers to engage in their trade or profession and, through their trade and profession, exercise their Constitutional right of free expression; the Constitutional rights of the consumer audience to peacefully assemble and, subject to their tastes, acquire property in the form of clothes and accessories; the contractual rights (which the State is, subject to public policy, under a duty to respect) of the choreographers, models, hotels and, where tickets to fashion shows have been sold, the contractual rights of the audience. The Prime Minister’s decision to ban fashion shows can, therefore, amount to a violation of these rights. Although space constraints limit the scope of this article, I would also like to add that I cannot see any legal support behind the Order either: The Prime Minister does not have a free hand to restrict Pakistani citizen’s rights without the specific permission of the elected representatives of this country (in the form of legislation or ordinances). Moreover, the Ministry of Interior does not have the jurisdiction, as per the Federal Government’s Rules of Business, 1973 to issue directions like the Orders to hotels.

Although our courts of law have not yet dilated upon the legality of fashion shows, the Sind High Court in Karachi has implicitly approved of women pursuing modeling as a profession. In Atiqa Odhu v. Lintas (PLD 1997 Kar 57), Mr. Justice Rasheed Ahmad Rizvi observed that “For a model or for an artist to act in [sic] advertisement or to allow the advertisers to use and exploit his or her photographs, pictures or T.V. images, in fact, amounts to earning [sic] a livelihood.” There is no reason to suspect that Mr. Justice Rivi’s comments were meant solely for women modeling in photographs, pictures and television. A female model on a catwalk is also earning her livelihood. To think otherwise would mean opposition to even the various billboards densely dotted around our cities (and every right thinking Pakistani has a thing or two to say to the people involved in vandalizing them) as well as to the presence of those women who appear in television commercials exhorting us to purchase the latest refrigerator.

In any case, the Constitution gives every citizen the right to be treated in accordance with the law. More specifically, Article 4(2)(b) states that “no person shall be prevented from or be hindered in doing that which is not prohibited by law.” In other words, in order to restrict the citizens of Pakistan from holding or watching fashion shows, the government must link its Order with some legislative enactment or Ordinance. A country can simple not put itself out as a democracy if a government’s whims can effect citizen rights. Nothing short of a law which bans fashion shows or specifically defines and restricts the “activities” the government finds objectionable will suffice.

To allow this or any government to restrict citizen’s rights without legislative consent is dangerous for two reasons. First, it allows the government to interfere with citizen’s rights at its discretion and in a totally arbitrary manner. Discretion is “the Law of Tyrants; it is always unknown; it is different in different Men; it is casual and depends Constitution, Temper, and Passion. In the best it is often times Caprice, in the worst it is every Vice, Folly, and Passion to which human Nature is liable” (as cited by Perrin J. in Conway and Lynch v. R. (1845) 7 Ir.L.R 149). Second, it gives the government a free hand to enforce its own morality onto the citizens of this country. Here, a lesson may be taken by the great French essayist Michel de Montaigne (“On some words of Virgil”): “The more our moral thoughts are abundant and solid the more engrossing they are and oppressive.”

There is nothing in our law which specifically proscribes fashion shows. However, section 294(a) of the Pakistan Penal Code, 1980 prescribes a three month sentence of imprisonment for anyone who “to the annoyance of others . . . does any obscene act in any public place.” But the Order does not describe fashion shows as obscene. It refers to them as un-Islamic and states that they “militate” against Pakistan’s cultural values. However, obscene and un-Islamic acts are not necessarily one and the same thing. On the other hand, section 508 of the Penal Code prescribes a one year sentence of imprisonment for anyone who “causes or attempts to cause any person to do anything which that person is not legally bound to do, or to omit to do anything which he is legally entitled to do, by inducing or attempting to induce that person to believe that he or any person in whom he is interested will become or will be rendered by some act of the offender an object of Divine displeasure . . .” In other words, the existing laws of Pakistan do not prohibit the practice of fashion shows, but they do prohibit the use of religion as a tool of coercion.

Pakistan does, after all, pretend to be a democracy bound by law. Surely the government should then pretend to do its Constitutionally mandated duty and either follow the existing laws of Pakistan or create new ones which reflect its views.