(1) How would you like to Introduce yourself?
I am a Muslim woman from Bangladesh, a person who is passionate about art and enthusiastic about sharing my art with the world. I am a wife, a daughter and a sister.
(2) Tell Me Something About Your Family & How they have Supported you in achieving your Dream?
My paternal grandfather was an Islamic scholar and professor in Kolkata. My maternal grandmother and grandparents were entrepreneurs, my mother is an instructor of fashion design, and my father was a government service holder for the telecommunications ministry. My background makes me independent and creative, but respectful of my culture, religion, and country. My creativity comes from my mother, but my discipline and respect for the world around me is from my father. I am a representation of their dreams and the effort they put into raising me to become who I am.
(3) Tell Me About Your Best/Memorable Childhood Memory.
Every summer my family and I took the train from Dhaka to visit my grandmother in Chittagong.
(4) One of the craziest thing you have done in your life
My marriage. When people saw it, they lost their minds. The wedding outfits had my husband and my face on them, my dress was made of plastic, and I rode in on a white horse. It won wedding of the year in Bangladesh. I didn’t want to do the traditional wedding, but at the same time I wanted to respect my culture and history. I think the concept was pretty wild, but it resonated with a lot of people. I think it got over 20 million views on social media.
(5) What do you love most about yourself?
I think deeply about things that matter to me, and I am observant. It is how I create my art. I love that I am independent and I don’t follow trends or what people think is normal. I am quirky and I think people like that about me too.
(6) Tell me about your hobbies.
I love adventure travel, good music, creating things and helping others through tough times.
(7) Have you done anything lately worth remembering?
I organized a fashion show on sustainable development that created fashionable designs for Qataris, I wanted to create a bridge between Qatar and Bangladesh. Qatar is a warm country and Bangladesh’s cotton, silk, jamdani, and nakshikatha are perfect for this climate. I organized the wonderful show with the help of the Qatar Foundation and the Embassy of Bangladesh. Apart from the attendance of the U.S. and U.K. ambassadors, many from the diplomatic and business community here in Doha also enjoyed my night of fashion.
(8) Tell me about your journey as a Fashion Designer.
My fashion journey started in 2011 with a reality show called Style Guru. At 16 years, I was the youngest designer competing. The judge’s panel consisted of fashion titans from all over the world, and they loved my pattern work and the creative way I beat all the challenges to get to the top of the competition. From there, Bibi Russell selected me to compete on her fashion reality show, Ethno Fashion Week. I was also the youngest designer at 17 and was one of the top ten designers. Shortly after that I interned for Beximco’s fashion house and started my own label, Stride Fashion wear. Then celebrities, corporations, and other garment manufacturers started taking interest in my fashions and paying me to design for them. Under the Stride label I designed major international beauty pageants’s national costumes:
1. Miss Universe Bangladesh 2019 , national costume, rickshaw hood
2. Miss World Bangladesh 2017 . Grand finale gown
3. Miss tourism world 2018 national costume, theme : freedom of culture
4. Winner of national costume Miss landscape international 2019
5. Miss landscape international evening gown with nakshikatha
6. Miss charm international 2023 national costume
7. Miss grand international 2022 national costume
(9) What has inspired you to become a Fashion Designer?
My mother is a fashion designer and grew up watching her designing clothing. I would talk to the factory workers about producing the designs, and I would draw and design my outfits from a very young age. When I started making waves nationally on reality shows like Style Guru, I knew that I was going to make a career out of my passion. I never wanted to just make normal clothing. I want the world to know that Bangladesh doesn’t just make clothing for export, but it is as vibrant on the fashion scene as New York, Paris, or Milan. My design has a voice, and that voice is saying that it is not enough to wear beautiful clothing while ignoring the ugliness around you. My concepts compel people to think about the environment and what they are wearing and what it costs in natural and human resources to make the clothes. We can make beautiful things while also being beautiful to our planet and the creatures who live with us on it.
(10) What kind of Fashion show have you done Elborate please?
I’ve done almost twenty fashion shows. SOme I do for friends and colleagues in the fashion industry to celebrate art and culture. Others I do on commission for multinational corporations and businesses who want to showcase their brands. Others I do, like the Qatar Foundation one, and one I did in collaboration with the U.S. Air Force, which shares Bangladeshi culture and values to the rest of the world.
(11) If your life is a photograph, what would it look like?
A woman reaching a high mountain peak with the setting sun and the moon in the background.
(12) If you could live one day of your life over again, what day would you choose?
I would choose the day before my auntie died. I loved her very much and would use the time to tell her how much I respected, admired, and loved her. She already knew I felt that way, but sometimes it helps to hear it. I was working when she died, and I would have just stopped working to see her if I knew it would be the last time.
(13) How do you want to help society?
Society doesn’t need help. If we care for things without a voice like our waterways, our trees, and the other creatures on earth, then we can’t help but care for people with voices who suffer. If our environment is clean, then our food, our bodies, our minds will be clean. We will respect ourselves more and so respect other humans too. Society will benefit naturally from that way of living.
(14) A Few words about Qatar & how this place has helped you in fulfilling your dreams?
Qatar is a lovely country honestly, I must say. I had a tough time at first being a new bride in a new country, but I quickly found support, especially from the Qataris who supported my and my artistic expression. I would love to collaborate with the Qatari royal family on something that could put Qatar on the map, fashionwise.
(15) What message do you want to give to our viewers?
The way we produce our clothing now is harming our environment. We have to be more kind to nature, and we can find creative ways to look and feel beautiful while living in the beautiful world around us. If we have a fixed goal, we can all come up with ideas to make beautiful, fashionable clothing that sustains the environment, protects workers, and expresses our most creative selves.
Tasmit Afiyat
