KARACHI: Over 200 artisans from all over the country came together to showcase their skills and handcrafts as the two-day Daachi Arts and Crafts Exhibition opened at the Expo Centre here on Saturday.
Many of the craftspeople, especially those from Punjab, had braved flood waters to reach Karachi with their works of art.
It was the amazing will of these craftspeople to keep their ancestral skills alive and also turn them into their livelihood.
At another stall there were embroidered covers of Quran Shareef, table mats, etc — all handmade by Saima Fazal and Shagufta Fayyaz from Multan.
The Daachi Arts and Crafts Exhibition is the flagship project of the Daachi Foundation, which has been creating livelihood opportunities and craft continuity to artisans across the country since 2010.
To date, 22 Daachi Arts and Crafts Exhibitions have been held in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad, which has helped to provide a steady income to artisans and keep their skills alive.
This year the exhibition dazzled its exceptional range of crafts from glazed and terracotta pottery to painted and carved woodwork, embellished and woven textiles.
Metal products to rugs and kilims, basketry and folk toys, traditional silver and bead jewellery to herb and preserved fruit products from Hunza.
Contemporary designers that pay tribute to craft with innovative interpretations added yet another dimension to the resilience of timeless patterns.
An art gallery and organic food court with stalls by home-based cooks was also a part of the exhibition.
There at a Karachi stall you saw resin art hangings and word letter key chains with pretty earrings made to look like tiny cold drink cans that beckoned you, but their prices which were rather steep with just the key chains costing Rs350 each made you back off.
Of course, no handicrafts exhibition would be complete without garments.
Here, too, at Zehra Junaid’s Unique Collection, a Karachi stall, you found the most exquisite hand-painted gharara and shalwar kameez suits or dupatta and kameez, unstitched and stitched suits, with prices in the range of Rs7,000 to Rs16,000.
On one side of the same stall there were handmade khussa available in the range of Rs2,500 to Rs3,000.
From Sindh there was the beautiful Hala cobalt blue pottery with the cheapest item, small bowls, priced at Rs250 each to the most expensive vase worth thousands at Mehran Khan’s stall.
A stall from Hunza had bags full of all kinds of herbal teas, starting from camomile tea to other tea concoctions not usually heard of. Each bag cost Rs400.
Abu Bakr Naeem’s leather goods stall, Kostbar, had little card wallets for Rs250 and a leather backpack for Rs12,500.
The stall also had leather-bound diaries with embroidered spines.
The most fascinating stall for anyone was the one from Multan, selling Guggu Ghoray or children’s horses made of shiny paper. Mohammad Rashid from Multan not only had horses of different sizes, including as tall as five feet, but also elephants.
No handicrafts exhibition is also complete without artificial jewellery. Shazia Qasim and Farah Hasan at another Karachi stall had the prettiest handmade jewellery, including rings, bangles and necklaces. And the best thing about it was that everything was most reasonably priced.
From artificial to real silver and gems jewellery by Sukaina Abbas to discover the art of simplicity. Sukaina said that she was there to promote the “Made in Pakistan label”.
More local stalls included the Parsi Cuisine stall and the Nice Krumbs stall both selling Parsi delicacies made right here in home kitchens.
There was Mawa Cake with milk, khoya and nuts, which the lady at the stall insisted on everyone to taste. Farishteh Kapadia from Parsi Cuisine, meanwhile, was selling date and lime chutney, tomato and lime chutney, tomato and raisin chutney and pickles, which she also wanted everyone to sample.
Published in Dawn, October 5th, 2025
