Miss World Pakistan 2026: Lahore Pageant Puts Fashion in Focus

LAHORE: Contestants and organisers at the Miss World Pakistan and Mrs World Pakistan 2026 award ceremony in Lahore said fashion is a serious economic sector and that beauty pageants now belong on Pakistani soil.

The ceremony was held at Faletti’s Hotel Lahore. Organiser Sonia Ahmed said contestants had come from London, Azad Kashmir and from within Pakistan, and that Mr Pakistan is from Azad Kashmir.

International model Jia Khan, competing for Miss World Pakistan, said she was visiting the country after 15 years and had arrived two days earlier.

“Fashion is a big source of economy,” she said. If such events are held here and other countries invest, she added, it will be very good for Pakistan’s economy.

The trade side of that argument is already visible. Payoneer, the cross-border payments company, hosted its Checkout VIP Connect event for Pakistan’s fashion exporters in 2024.

Khan said Pakistani designers are “no less than any designer in the world” and that events like this give them confidence. Pakistani labels have been building that case abroad. Designer Syeda Amera showed her designs in Paris in 2016, and in 2024 Mohsin Naveed Ranjha opened the first standalone Pakistani fashion studio on London’s Regent Street.

She congratulated Ahmed’s team and called the decision to stage the event in Pakistan “a very brave act”. The two had spoken for about a year before she agreed to come, she said.

The pageant is older than its presence in Pakistan. Ahmed, who lives in Canada, founded the Miss Pakistan World organisation there in 2002. The contest moved to Lahore in 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the city has hosted it every year since. In July this year the organisation named Pakistan’s first official representative to Miss World.

“I think it was due,” Ahmed said of bringing the show to Pakistan. “We were doing it in Canada for many years.” She said the event has grown since the move and that the organisation wants to work with local talent to “bring international flavors to Pakistan”.

That includes the film industry. Ahmed said the organisation is working with Lollywood and named Pappu Samrat as the pageant’s choreographer. “Lahore is such a place where very beautiful people live,” she said, calling it the best place to hold beauty pageants.

Pakistan’s fashion industry took its organised form over the past two decades. The Pakistan Fashion Design Council was set up in Lahore in 2006. Karachi staged Fashion Pakistan Week in 2009, and Lahore held its first fashion week in February 2010.

Bridal showcases followed, among them the PFDC L’Oréal Paris Bridal Week. Pakistani models drew international notice too: supermodel Mehreen Syed was ranked among the world’s most attractive women in 2015.

Fashion is also being taught as a trade. Punjab is to give vulnerable children vocational training in skills from fashion design to loom weaving.

Asked whether Pakistan’s culture and traditions allow such competitions, Ahmed rejected the premise. “The show happens in Pakistan,” she said, adding that “no one considers this a bad thing”.

She said pageantry itself has changed. “Earlier, there used to be swimsuits in pageantry, now there aren’t,” she said, citing Miss World. Contestants are asked to show their culture and heritage instead.

The objection, she said, “is just a perception. It is not the truth.” Pakistan, in her words, “has now become a place where international beauty pageants can be held”.

The contestants’ advice to newcomers was to be bold but careful. Khan urged young people to “step out fearlessly” and learn new skills while staying within their boundaries.

“Modeling is a very good profession if you do it within your boundaries,” she said.

She said parents feel more at ease when women organise such events. Pakistani and Indian Punjabi parents contact her agency, Model London, about sending their children into modelling, she added.

Komal Butt, introduced at the ceremony as Miss Pakistan, said hesitation is no longer the problem. Gen Z “are not hesitant at all and are full of confidence”, she said, adding that “families should support”.

Butt, who is also an anchor, called the media “the backbone nowadays”. She said media studies and filmmaking are now taught at universities and that women are aware of the opportunities.

On fitness, Khan credited “gym and swim”, good thoughts and eating well. Butt advised drinking more water, avoiding junk food and working on camera presence.

Dr Azqa Sohail, a British-Pakistani doctor and Miss Supranational Pakistan 2026, said she represented the country in Poland in July.

“I am a doctor. I have a good character. I come from a good family, so they liked it very much,” she said. “They learned what Pakistani people are like.”

Her message to newcomers: “If you have a dream, never give up on it. Don’t look at society. Look at yourself.”