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"   Photo: Aysha Saeed  The thought of wearing a raspberry-chiffon-Pakistani wedding outfit in Bloomingdale&amp;#039;s\u2014while on television\u2014would have made Aysha Saeed wake up in a cold sweat as a &amp;quot;fresh-off-the-boat&amp;quot; teenager in New Jersey. But when Joe Zee challenged her to wear one, complete with fuchsia trimmings, on All On the Line, the Sundance Channel&amp;#039;s fashion-rescue series, she had no choice. The exercise was meant to help Saeed, 36, bring her designs and her eponymous company to the next level. Like so many immigrants, she has struggled with how much of her heritage to infuse with her very American upbringing. &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#039;t want to make ethnic clothing,&amp;quot; she said. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t want to be a pigeon-holed designer.&amp;quot; Perhaps as a rejection of the awkward high school years when she wasn&amp;#039;t allowed to go out, or simply because she has spent most of her life in America, she wears and designs Western clothing. Her dresses are sleeveless and show leg, though there&amp;#039;s a sense of muted conservatism. Because she didn&amp;#039;t commit to using the embellishments that make traditional Pakistani clothing so attractive, the fringes she used felt staid and off. By not embracing both worlds, she landed in the drab grey zone that is neither here nor there essentially diluting her voice. But that voice is a clear, determined one. Saeed quit her lucrative job on Wall Street in 2007 to start her company, in spite of &amp;quot;liabilities,&amp;quot; like a husband and children; she wanted to be a designer since she was a girl in Pakistan and her father would bring back glossy magazines from his travels. &amp;quot;He wore a cashmere coat and would say `come here, touch this coat,&amp;#039;&amp;quot; she remembers, &amp;quot;Rather than teach me about math and science, he was teaching me about cashmere.&amp;quot; Surrounded by her designs in her showroom in New York&amp;#039;s garment district, Saeed is starting to piece together her fall line. Inspired by the Mughal Empire, she&amp;#039;s creating knit dresses with drapes on the hips and sides reminiscent of dhoti pants. A ceremonial jacket, complete with embroideries that &amp;quot;take forever&amp;quot; to do, might be her pi\u00E8ce de r\u00E9sistance. Her palette is crimson and purple with enough gray to coax the color-wary out of their black-and-white comfort zones. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m bringing the Maharajah era to the modern world,&amp;quot; she said, &amp;quot;Chanel&amp;#039;s pre-fall line is the same and I thought `Ok, we&amp;#039;re on the same page, Karl and I.&amp;#039;&amp;quot; But in order to do any of that, she needs to turn her business around. Find out if Bloomingdale&amp;#039;s buys her line, and if she can bring her new designs to life, on the Sundance Channel, tonight at 9:30PM. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/fashion/news/a7963/all-on-the-line-maharajah-fashion-34179/>