Welcome to Libayah UK. You are speaking with
Waniya Manzoor
Director & Brand Relations · Libayah UK
Key Takeaways
- Grew up in a family with deep roots in Lahore's fashion retail industry — has been reading the Pakistani designer market since childhood.
- Travels to Pakistan twice yearly to source directly from designer brands: spring-summer lawn season in February and March, autumn-winter formals in August and September.
- Maintains direct accounts relationships with 100+ Pakistani designer houses including Mushq, Zara Shahjahan, and Baroque.
- Built Libayah's supplier authentication protocol — has personally assessed over 500 Pakistani designer pieces for quality and authenticity.
- Has rejected stock from three intermediary suppliers after identifying tag and embroidery inconsistencies that indicated non-authentic pieces.
From Faisalabad Retail Floors to London's Diaspora Market
Waniya Manzoor did not stumble into Pakistani fashion retail. She grew up inside it. Her mother and her khala — her maternal aunt — were both deeply embedded in Lahore's fashion retail circuit through the 1990s and 2000s, at a time when the Pakistani designer industry was building the commercial infrastructure that would eventually make it internationally recognised. Waniya spent her childhood watching how that market operated from the inside: which designers were reliable, which seasonal drops were worth waiting for, and where the meaningful difference between price points actually sat.
She moved to the UK in her early twenties and settled in Ilford, Essex — one of the most established South Asian communities in the country. The move clarified something she had sensed from childhood: the diaspora market for authentic Pakistani designer wear was enormous, chronically underserved, and riddled with the kind of trust failures that only someone with deep sourcing knowledge could reliably solve. Libayah is her answer to that gap.
Her buying programme runs twice a year. February and March in Lahore for spring-summer collections — the lawn season, when the city's fashion houses release their most commercially significant drops. August and September for the autumn-winter cycle: formal collections, Hemline bridal pieces, festive wear, and the heavier silk and velvet lines that perform in UK winter wedding season from October through February. She attends brand launch events, conducts direct factory and atelier visits, and maintains the WhatsApp relationships with senior accounts contacts that make rapid access to new stock possible.
Buying Expertise and Specialised Knowledge
Waniya's expertise covers three distinct areas that intersect at the point of every Libayah stock decision: market intelligence about the Pakistani designer landscape, hands-on authenticity assessment, and the supply chain knowledge that separates direct-to-retail sourcing from grey-market intermediary purchasing.
Pakistani Designer Market Intelligence
Waniya knows which Maria B seasonal drops historically generate the most post-sellout search demand, which Zara Shahjahan Coco Lawn editions are worth buying forward stock on, and which emerging brands have the embroidery quality and supply chain reliability to justify a UK distribution relationship. This is knowledge that takes years of direct market exposure to build and cannot be acquired from reading brand lookbooks.
Authenticity Verification
The replica market for Pakistani designer clothing is more sophisticated than most buyers realise. Counterfeit Mushq, Baroque, and Afrozeh pieces circulate in the UK market and are convincing enough to fool casual buyers. Waniya's verification process checks six specific indicators — swing tag format, woven label stitching, embroidery thread density, fabric weight against category norms, packaging construction, and barcode consistency — against known authentic reference pieces she holds for comparison.
Direct Supplier Relationships
Libayah's supply chain does not route through the intermediary resellers that add cost and reduce accountability in the UK Pakistani fashion market. Waniya maintains direct accounts relationships with 100+ designer houses. This is not a marketing claim — it is the structural reason Libayah can hold UK stock of collections that have sold out on brands' own primary channels, and why the brand can respond quickly when a new collection launches.
Seasonal Buying Discipline
One of the most common failures in Pakistani fashion retail is buying to trend rather than buying to customer need. Waniya's buying decisions are driven by search and purchase data from the Libayah customer base — specifically which designer categories, occasion registers, and fabric types generate the most demand from UK diaspora buyers — not by what looked strongest in a Lahore launch event showroom. The two are often different.
Real Buying Decisions: How Waniya Selects Stock for Libayah
Every collection on Libayah represents a specific buying decision Waniya made — a judgement about quality, demand, and authenticity that determines whether a piece makes it into UK stock. Here are examples of how that process works in practice.
Identifying Rare-Stock Opportunity: Maria B Raw Silk 2026
When Maria B 2026 collections launched, it sold through on the brand's primary website within days. Most UK resellers had not bought forward stock. Waniya had pre-identified the collection as a high sell-through risk based on the previous season's raw silk performance data and had already secured UK inventory before the official launch. The result: Libayah became the primary UK source for buyers searching for Maria B after the official site went to waitlist.
Outcome: UK stock held throughout search demand peak. Zero alternatives for buyers who had missed the official drop.
Rejecting Intermediary Stock: Authentication Failure on Baroque Pieces
During the 2024 buying cycle, Waniya was offered a batch of Baroque pieces from a Pakistan-based intermediary at below-market pricing. The pieces were visually convincing. On physical inspection, she identified three discrepancies: the swing tag barcode format did not match Baroque's current label system, the embroidery thread had a slightly flatter profile than reference authentic pieces, and the dust bag material was a lighter weight than the brand standard. The entire batch was rejected. No Libayah customer received a non-authentic piece from that supply offer.
Outcome: Intermediary batch rejected. Authenticity protocol updated with Baroque-specific verification checkpoints.
Seasonal Buying Decision: Zara Shahjahan Coco Lawn 26
The Coco Lawn programme is Zara Shahjahan's most commercially significant seasonal drop and the collection that generates the highest search volume in the UK Pakistani diaspora market. Waniya's buying decision for the 2026 edition was based on three years of Coco Lawn purchase data from the Libayah customer base, analysis of which colourways and embroidery registers had generated the most repeat purchases, and direct conversations with Zara Shahjahan's accounts team about the 2026 collection's design direction.
Outcome: Full UK stock held for the two highest-demand colourways within the first week of the UK launch window.
New Brand Assessment: Evaluating a Lahore Independent Label
Waniya was approached by a newer Lahore-based label about UK distribution. Her evaluation process covered five areas: embroidery consistency across 12 pieces from the same batch (looking for the variation that indicates handwork quality), fabric sourcing transparency, supply chain capacity for UK volumes, brand price positioning relative to established competitors, and the label's existing sell-through performance in the Pakistan domestic market. The label passed on all five. It entered Libayah's catalogue in Q1 2026.
Outcome: New label onboarded after passing full evaluation criteria. Now part of the Libayah catalogue.
Professional Connections and Industry Involvement
Waniya maintains active professional relationships across the Pakistani fashion industry — both in Pakistan and in the UK diaspora market — that are essential to Libayah's ability to source quickly, authenticate reliably, and stay ahead of seasonal trends.
- Direct accounts relationships with senior contacts at 100+ Pakistani designer houses including Mushq, Zara Shahjahan, Baroque, Faiza Saqlain, and Afrozeh
- Attending brand launch events and trade previews in Lahore during both annual buying trips
- Active participant in the UK Pakistani fashion retail community — maintains relationships with other UK-based buyers who provide market intelligence on pricing and demand
- Attends Pakistani fashion trunk shows and showcase events in London and Birmingham to track diaspora market preferences directly
- Engaged with the South Asian textile and fashion import community in the UK relevant for staying current on regulatory and customs developments that affect UK buyers of Pakistani designer wear
Have a Question About a Collection or Authenticity?
Waniya is directly reachable via WhatsApp for sourcing questions, collection availability, and authenticity queries. Most questions are answered the same day.
Available most weekdays. For urgent stock queries, WhatsApp is the fastest channel.
Libayah UK
58 Peregrine Road, Hainault Ilford, Essex IG6 3SZ
Company: Libayah LTD · Registration: 16667064
Email: support@libayah.co.uk · WhatsApp: +44 7447 954609
