Milan comes to Pakistan and sets the second day of FPW to a great start.

Start fashion week off with an exciting designer. End it with a big veteran name. Throw in some heavy duty celebrity tamasha with preferably some jumping about on the catwalk. Whisk them all together and you've got a day at fashion week where the energy runs high, cameras keep clicking and the audience keeps cheering.

Case in point: the second day of the Winter Festive edition of Fashion Pakistan Week (FPW).

The first collection of the day was by visiting Italian designer Stella Jean, hot off the Milan Fashion Week runway, merging embroideries from the Kalash Valley and local print motifs with a number of impeccably finished garments.

The last collection of the day was by Maheen Khan, who turned her expert eye towards the creation of fanciful, luxe silhouettes.

Strewn between the opening act and the finale were collections that were great and not-so-great and a veritable flood of celebrities. Entertainment, if not always bona fide fashion, remained at a high.

Stella Jean

In March this year, Stella Jean, a designer from Italy, visited Pakistan at the behest of the Pakistani Ministry of Commerce. She visited textile factories and saw various indigenous craft techniques but became fixated with the handwork that is unique to the Kalash valley.

With her penchant for ethical fashion, Stella had previously worked with artisans from other countries, intermingling their craft with her design sensibility. Now, she decided that she wanted to work with the craftswomen of the Kalash.

The fruition of this collaboration was showcased a little more than a month ago at Milan Fashion Week - and now, at FPW.

Read: Mushk Kaleem and Alicia Khan are just about to walk the ramp at Milan Fashion Week

In her endeavor to help build an Italy-Pakistan bridge, Stella had commissioned work to the women. They embroidered fabric according to her instructions and then their finished work was sent to her in Italy, where the final garments were stitched.

Much effort had to be made to maintain quality. An embroidered swathe with stains on it would be rejected and remade all over again. The logistics of transporting the fabric and embroideries back and forth also took time.

It was a tedious project - but a worthwhile one both from a social perspective as well as commercial. In Milan, Stella's collection gained a lot of attention from the press and managed to depict Pakistan in a different light. Designs placed online sold out immediately.

At FPW, Stella's multicoloured canvas...