The Bijlee Sudio🪁

At Frizzy Picks, we are drawn to stories that feel alive; layered with culture, emotion, and a distinct point of view. Basant Mela by The Bijlee Studio captured our attention not only for its colour and craft, but for its unapologetic confidence in excess. It doesn’t soften Basant or romanticise it from a distance; instead, it leans fully into its drama, its chaos, and its joy.

In this feature, we speak with Umar about a vision where fashion borrows from cinema, memory, and celebration; shaping a collection that feels theatrical yet deeply personal. Basant Mela reminds us that tradition doesn’t always whisper. Sometimes, it sings loudly, dances freely, and demands to be seen.

1. Basant Mela feels less like a collection and more like a moving set from old Punjabi cinema. What first image, memory, or emotion sparked this idea?

Basant for me has always existed through films and music, although I do remember seeing kites fill the sky as a child. When I began working on this collection, nothing had been officially announced about whether Basant would even be celebrated. Around that time, I was rewatching the drama serial Dhaani, starring Madiha Imam and Sami Khan, and that triggered a very clear visual idea of what I wanted to do. I realised I didn’t want to recreate Basant as a festival but to reimagine it through personal perception.

2.The collection borrows heavily from street culture, village fairs, and folk aesthetics. Why was it important for you to take Basant off the rooftops and place it back among people and stories?

The Bijlee Studio draws its aesthetics from vernacular voices and the streets of Lahore — in what is unmistakably our own. Festivities like Basant are layered with social narratives: of people, encounters, and shared spaces. Over time, we were slowly losing this cultural expression, and taking Basant off rooftops was important because culture does not only exist in symbols; it lives in daily life, movement, and community.

3. Khaddar plays a central role here — sturdy, unapologetic, and textured. What does working with such a grounded fabric allow you to express creatively?

I primarily focused on hand-loomed fabrics like khaddar because the fabric itself carries a story. Each textile holds the time and effort of its maker. Through hand embroidery and construction, this fabric becomes a contemporary archive of craft. These are not seasonal pieces for me — they are garments meant to be kept for life.

4.From bold borders to exaggerated silhouettes, the clothes refuse subtlety. Was this collection about reclaiming visual loudness in a time of minimal fashion?

Lollywood and Punjabi cinema are inherently maximalist, expressive, and visually loud. At a time when fashion is moving toward extreme minimalism and people are becoming afraid of colour, I felt the need to reclaim visual excess. The silhouettes, details, and colour palette all originate from cinematic references, asserting that exaggeration and ornamentation are not outdated but already exist in our films and cultural imagery.

5.The styling feels almost theatrical; sugarcane sticks, film posters, charpais, brick walls. How important is storytelling beyond the garment in your design process?

For me, fashion operates as narrative construction rather than surface design. From the beginning, I knew I wanted to work with Lollywood and cinema as a central reference, and if that is my reference, then storytelling becomes my responsibility. The campaign functions as a communicative medium, not decoration. Every prop, location, and styling choice contributes to a wider semiotic system. My goal is not just to make clothes — especially in a time when AI-generated imagery can easily replace surface-level fashion visuals. The garment exists within a scene, not in isolation.

6.There’s a beautiful balance between nostalgia and rebellion in Basant Mela. How do you personally navigate honouring tradition while refusing to romanticise it?

I want to present culture in its raw form — everything that exists within it. Tradition is not only graceful; it is also textured, chaotic, and contradictory, and that contrast is where true authenticity lies. I am interested in showing both beauty and roughness. The collection resists nostalgia and instead presents tradition as a living, imperfect reality.

7.The colour palette is fearless! Electric blues, fiery reds, mustard yellows, folk prints. What role does colour play in shaping The Bijlee Studio’s identity?

Bijlee Studio’s identity is articulated through colour, silhouette, visuals, and cinematic expression. My colour palettes are drawn directly from Lollywood and Punjabi cinema, where colour functions as emotion, rebellion, and a narrative device. In this context, colour becomes language rather than ornament.

8.Many of these looks feel gender-fluid and deliberately unboxed. Is challenging conventional dressing norms an intentional part of the brand’s philosophy?

Much of what we now consider gender-fixed was never rigid in our culture to begin with. A man wearing a shalwar with a jacket and a woman wearing the same is simply personal expression. The collection reflects this inherited fluidity because clothing, for me, is not about classification — it is about freedom of self-representation.

9.Basant has long been a contested cultural memory. What conversation were you hoping to reignite through this collection?

For me, this campaign is not about Basant as nostalgia or memory. It is Basant as expression. It represents renewal, desire, intimacy, encounter, love, and romance — echoing the emotional world of Noor Jehan’s voice while holding the rebellion of Naseebo Lal. It is not a frozen past; it is a living emotional season.

10.Who is the Bijlee Studio wearer you imagined while creating Basant Mela — and where do you see them wearing these pieces?

Someone who wants to express themselves fully — a lover, a rebel, and a person who treats clothing as an extension of feeling rather than just appearance. Someone who holds emotion, celebrates their own presence, and is unafraid of being seen.

11.As the founder, how does Umar’s personal relationship with culture, cinema, and street life influence each Bijlee Studio drop?

I grew up watching films and television, and that exposure shaped my visual language very early on. Fashion became the medium through which I could translate cinematic language. Listening to voices like Noor Jehan, Nahid Akhtar, and Naseebo Lal shaped my imagination. Even the brand’s name comes from Nahid Akhtar’s song “Bijli Bhari Hai Mere Ang Ang Mein.”

12. If Basant Mela were not a collection but a feeling, what would you want people to carry with them long after the kites come down?

If Basant Mela were a feeling, it would be a long-lasting emotion of expression. It is about owning oneself, expressing oneself, and relearning how to see what has always been ours. For me, it is not about good or bad — it simply is. It exists as a state of being, not a judgment.