There’s an apparel brand called Agha Noor that’s hard to miss. It may catch your eye while you’re wandering through the glitzy Dolmen City mall, for the white-and-gold Agha Noor bags dangle down many an arms, competing only with megabrand Khaadi’s multi-coloured carriers.

You may have observed it while winding down the lanes of Karachi’s Zamzama boulevard; a miniscule store filled with avid shoppers on any given evening. Or it may have caught your eye on Lahore’s thriving M.M. Alam road, a spanking new shop that generated long queues in the early morning when it launched late last year.

At the Agha Noor stores, new stock comes in every Wednesday and generally begins depleting within the next few days. The Dolmen City outlet, located in the mall’s glamorous ‘fashion avenue’, is often crowded by a mélange of women, the young as well as the old, women who work and housewives, women in veils and those without. It’s a brand that has wholeheartedly been embraced by Pakistani women and they come in droves – quite in contrast to the not-so-crowded high-end stores that stand right next door.

The 20-year-old Agha Noor. – Photo credit: Agha Noor

“We started as a very small business with only a few workmen creating our designs for us,” recalls Hira. “My sister, Agha Noor, brothers Salar and Taimoor, and I saved up money for our Zamzama outlet by retailing our designs online. We opened the Zamzama store with just 50 pieces and slowly gained popularity through word-of-mouth.

"Eventually, we began expanding. Today, we have a workforce of 500. We have three outlets at the moment and this year, we plan to branch out to 12 more as well as launch an unstitched silk collection.”

What’s the secret to Agha Noor’s popularity? Cutting-edge designs? Hardly; for the brand opts to sell clothes that are retail-friendly rather than trendy. Instead, the brand has mastered that one all-important element that so many others have not – fabulously low prices!

At Agha Noor, prices for cotton-net and cotton-silk shirts embellished with stonework begin at Rs3,500. There are embroideries, block-print on silks, printed chiffons, cotton-nets and glittering sequin-work on shirts, all available well-under Rs5,000.

“We have worked really hard to make sure our prices remain low, even as we innovate with new designs,” says Hira. “We don’t have any formal education in textile or design and have completely learnt on the job. We’re up till late every night improvising, working on designs and overcoming loopholes.”

And yet, Agha Noor has missed out on the single-most important factor that makes a brand unique: head-turning, dizzying, bedazzling fashion.

The clothes at Agha Noor are often very pretty, ideal for a conventional dinner or dholki. You’ll see it worn by the odd TV morning show host and it may be your first stop when you’re hunting for a conventional Eid outfit, but it might not end up becoming your favourite store – the one that caters to the regular client, but also has something set aside for the edgy – that masters retail even as it goes a little wacky and just has fun with fashion.

Tunics remain baggy, adhering to the brand’s own standards of Small, Medium and Large, based on the Pakistani female's physique. Hems hardly ever dilly-dally about, typically drooping down or at most, rising to the knee.

“There’s a demand for long lengths and our clients don’t like clothes that are too funky. Why should we design clothes that will not sell?” points out Hira.

New cotton-net collection at Agha Noor. – Photo credit: Agha Noor

It’s a valid point and even high-fashion stores predominantly feature conventional silhouettes. Still, there’s always that tiny capsule collection that gives them an edge and affirms them as fashion forward – something that is sorely missing at Agha Noor.

“We innovate in our own way,” defends Hira. “We are strongly inspired by the Indian catwalks, translating motifs and colour schemes that we like on different silhouettes. Unlike Pakistan’s many veteran designers, who charge astronomical prices for designs that they lift straight off India, we don’t profess to be selling high-fashion. We consider ourselves a Pakistani version of Top Shop, following international trends and reinterpreting them onto designs that work well for mass retail.”

In doing so though, Agha Noor limits itself from growing into a fashion trendsetter.

“We do want to diversify, but I feel that we’re still too young a brand to think out-of-the-box,” says Hira. “We need to work on streamlining production before we can think about experimentation. Our market has to be strengthened.”

From Agha Noor's collection. – Photo credit: Agha Noor

But Agha Noor’s market is strong enough, based on the eager crowds filtering into their shops and the sales they draw in daily. It’s high time now that the young group of siblings – Taimoor, 27 years old, Salar, 18, Hira, 26 and Noor, just 20 – take their brand further before it fades away.

Given their business acumen and retail experience, should they opt to push the fashion envelope, this brand could become an utter sensation. Should they continue toeing the hackneyed retail-friendly line, they may earn sales right now but slowly trundle down to the mundane in the long-term.

The choice is Agha Noor’s.

Maliha Rehman is a fashion and lifestyle journalist with a penchant for writing, all the time! Log on to Twitter for more updates @maliharehman