Step 3: Find the Beautiful People

The real purpose of our trip here is not to venture into enemy territory, though it is land I rarely traverse, at least not journalistically: fashion. February marks the first Pakistan fashion week officially supported by the government.

The eyes of the world are on London, not Lahore, which makes the glitterati a less lucrative target, but nonetheless precautions are being taken: Inter-Services Intelligence and the bomb squad have a background presence, and the venue was a tight secret until two days before the event. The Taliban and the models share one thing in common: they both bare arms, albeit in a different sense. As a result of this, and the fact that they also bare legs, chests and navels, the catwalk girls have received death threats. As journalists, we come with a police escort and our accommodation is top secret. Never have I given up so much in the name of fashion.

All anyone here talks about it how they don't want to talk about the Taliban, and thus, they talk about them more. And it's difficult to ignore: on Tuesday, opening night, Taliban number two Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar was captured in Karachi, while this evening brought the news that 29 people had been killed in a bomb blast in Peshawar, about 320 miles north west of Lahore.

Fashion week finds itself a particular target simply because it defies many of the ideals that fundamentalist Islam stands for: under Taliban rule, women have had, under law, to observe purdah - literally, being behind a "curtain" whether the veil or inside the bounds of the house. With a domestic purpose only, they have no need for education nor any other adornment. On the catwalk this week, amazonian Pakistani women with jawlines that could cut paper model skirts that end well above the knee, as well as sleeveless tops, and plunging necklines.

We visited the house of a model this morning as Michelle was making a documentary for AFP. There were tell-tale signs that she was not the most obedient of Muslim Pakistani citizens: empty wine bottles, guitar hero in pride of place, books on Indian erotic art and a pet dog, which at least she kept in the front yard as her mother-in-law, like most devout Muslims, believes they are unclean. She told us she had recieved death threats and been blackmailed; that half an hour before a show they had been told that a bomb had been planted underneath the catwalk. But, she said, the show had to go on. Fashion was clearly worth dying for.

Some of the clothes this week are the daft creations of haute couture: bright collars that rise up to cover most of the face, coats that resemble a cross between a mongolian warlord and a gap year backpacker, and one particular gown that looks more like something the very hungry caterpillar threw up. But others are functional women's work clothes, bias cut, fitted, showing off curves and skin.

“Now that women work like men they must dress like men,” a national fashion editor told me. “I wouldn’t go burning our bras though. We need those.”

There is protest of a more conventional sort. T-shirts emblazoned "Education not war" "Je ne suis pas une terroriste" and "Stay alive 2010". Pakistani fashionistas have not forgotten the tumultuous backdrop against which they strut. Except of course, the bloke in the corner who clearly had other tragedies on his mind when he decided to wear his "Long live McQueen" t-shirt.

But most of all, it's about the fashion, and why not? Textiles are Pakistan's second biggest industry behind agriculture and Western fashion has a perpetual appetite for Eastern design.

Not that Pakistan can yet compete: the technical glitches, mostly unavoidable due to Lahore's daily power cuts, are symbolic of a nation that has ideas out of synch with the still slow development of its infrastructure. The hanging threads that trip up stilettoes models, the clearly visible pantylines and the choreography that could do with a lesson from a synchronised swimming team - all of these are signs that the nascent scene still has a way to go. But it's a start, and it's a truly tenacious one.

Most of all, fashion week is about forging an identity for Pakistan. This, too, has a way to go: the red carpet out here was graced by a few hundred of the country's elite, blessed with ten carat diamonds and testbook etiquette. Hundreds of millions of other Pakistanis, in the Frontier Provinces, Swat Valley, under the oppression of the Taliban or poverty, or both, are far away from here, as the call to prayer reminds us as it floats through the marquee.

As another fashion journalist out here explained:

“I think we’ll really evolve when we have women on the catwalk with purdah too. It’s an irony that we’re OK with navels and arms now, but not with the veil. Eighty per cent of women in Pakistan wear the veil and many want to. They’d want to even if they had the option. They are pushing us away and we are pushing them away.”

It's far from a united effort. But the chattering classes here agree that disunity is a common theme in a country that cannot even trust its own government. It's a long way from the end of the catwalk to the ending of war.