Meet the Team: Hasan Anwer

Hi, I'm Big Holiday co-founder, Hasan Anwer. Here's some background on me and why we started this venture.

Personal Style

We have a word in Urdu: tarka — the sizzling spiced ghee poured over a finished dal. The dish is incomplete without it. With it, the dish is in an entirely different stratosphere.

That's my personal style. Conventional fabrics, mundane colours, and then one detail that isn't conventional at all: a pair of loud socks, a neckerchief, a bandana, or a teba-collared jacket where a blazer would otherwise have gone. My own individuality infused into an increasingly homogeneous world.

I was brought up in a society that values conformity, and these small tweaks were my way of rebelling, however insignificant they may have seemed. It started with non-pleated chinos instead of the regulation school trousers, or an oxford cloth button down shirt (OCBD) — technically within the uniform guidelines, but different enough to stand out. Later, working in a corporate environment where any hint of flair was frowned upon, I graduated to colourful socks.

Then I found eBay and thrift shopping, and started buying pre-loved pieces — not just for the classic, timeless styling, but for how well they had already lasted. It was also how I opted out of the fast fashion cycle.

Style Inspiration

As a child I used to admire the care my great-grandfather put into his morning routine. He was an engineer by profession. His wardrobe was double-breasted suits for work, cardigans and robes off duty. My mother tells me none of it was unusual for the time — but he had acquired his wardrobe over decades, and every piece still stood the test of time and looked as good as the day he bought it. He lived to 96 - so did his clothes.

One thing in particular stood out. Every morning he would pluck a fresh flower from his garden - petunias were his favourite — and fasten it to his lapel. That was the difference between him and everyone else in the room: his dash of colour and individuality against an otherwise uniform-like wardrobe.

About Me

I live in Islamabad with my wife and our one-and-a-half-year-old son, who is already quite keen on picking out what he wants to wear.

My career has been built around mobilising finance for climate mitigation and adaptation — from household-level energy access projects, to capital to rewild rhinos in Punjab, to helping decarbonise the textile sector. It's incredibly rewarding work, and it has informed what we're trying to achieve at Big Holiday. (See our post on how we handle our emissions.)

In my spare time I sample and develop vegan recipes with my wife, who is the avid vegan of the two of us. In meat-loving Pakistan, this is a daunting challenge.

Why Start Big Holiday?

On one of Blair's visits to Pakistan, he was pleasantly surprised to find a complete absence of the global mall brands — the ones you'd find in global capitals such as Seoul, Berlin, New York, or Hong Kong. And yet the clothes in Pakistani shops were entirely up to speed with the latest global trends.

It was as if conforming to the current trend were an obligation. Anyone thinking or making differently would be cast out. I wanted out of that cycle — the same cycle feeding the global glut of textile waste and rising emissions from the textile sector.

So, we started Big Holiday to make clothes that are timeless in design and durable enough to last a lifetime. On a personal level, my wife can attest that once I acquire a piece of clothing, I hold on to it, regardless of whether it's still in fashion. I have pieces from Zara and H&M that are 15+ years old and still in pretty decent shape.

At Big Holiday, we want to add that tarka to your wardrobe — the kind that doesn't fizzle out over the course of a season, but lasts a lifetime.

- Hasan