Over the last 21 years, first-time entrepreneur Syed Alam Najiullah has steadily turned COTTON & COTTON that began due to a NO from a tailor at Tariq Road into a next generation fashion company. But the path from Karachi’s tailoring unit to Toronto’s fashion scene was anything but linear. Along the way, Alam experimented with a number of different models, making a series of strategic pivots some more successful than others.

‘Many have done far better than me in far shorter periods of time, but that was not my story says Alam Najiullah. It was brick by brick, client by client, store by store. It’s been a trip of passion, but it has not been a quick trip. Nor has it been easy. And that is the truth’. The designer is the gold standard in high-end men’s formal wear, worn by everyone from Presidents to Broadway Shows actors  in New York City. He’s a powerhouse entrepreneur who has grown a single tailoring unit into a fashion and lifestyle empire that spans a wide range of product segments – from a US $650 shirt to ready to wear – at price points that stretch from luxury to mass market.

“I wear many hats,” he says. “I have to be a promoter, a designer, a costumer of movie stars and celebrities, and a businessman,” says Alam, who heads both the business and creative sides of the company. “When you throw all of that into one bag, it’s a rough day. I love it, though.”

Alam was born in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. His father was a journalist of repute and a close confident of Mr. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. “I think, in a way, watching him write influenced me subliminally,” says Alam. Since it was the era of Bhutto who was himself immaculately dressed and had made all around him love clothes so Alam got his education in fashion by watching the movers and shakers from close quarters.

At an early age, Alam fell in love with cars and bikes but a near death accident due to which he lost his eye, broke his passion for racing and speed. “When you fall down — which you have to [do] if you want to learn to be a racer — you pick yourself right up and start again. You don’t let anything deter you,” he notes. “Oddly enough, it’s strangely like fashion — you have a limited amount of time in which to get a point of view across.”

With his racing days behind him, Alam turned to fashion. “I thought maybe I could go to design school but then decided in favor of the most illustrious of business schools in Pakistan, the IBA. At IBA, it was strategy that was his passion whereas the designer within him kept him at work. Clothes attracted him and volumes and volumes of GQ’s and Esquires prompted him to search for tailors who could emulate the images of his favorite images but to no avail. Until one day a tailor who after hours and hours of coaching and teaching by Alam suddenly boiled up and challenged him to do it himself. Alam took the challenge and initiated his successful venture and called it COTTON & COTTON.

In 1992, Alam opened his own men’s boutique. COTTON & COTTON started from a small locality and certainly not known for fashion was termed as atrocious by many “Because I didn’t come from a retail garment background, I think I brought fashion to the men’s fashion industry,” he says. “I was fearless because I really didn’t know any better.”

Alam has since pushed the boundaries of menswear. “[I] try to bring edginess to a traditional business,” he says. His most recent collection, for example, blends a traditional with a local palette. “[I] take a lot of stylistic and visual and intellectual liberties with the concept of a shirt. Every season, I try to change it — and that demand I put on myself is enormous. It’s painful.”