FOUND Stitches South Asian Memory, Heritage, Craft, & Hybridity Into Every Collection

Fashion has definitely become more sped-up, you can see it and you can feel it in all its boisterous and ephemeral glory. FOUND encourages us to craft beauty — to feel, remember, and reimagine. Created by Faraz Zaidi, a first-generation Pakistani-American designer, FOUND is a personal archive. A cultural bridge; a love letter to craft, nostalgia, and identity — sewn into contemporary shapes that feel as emotionally true as they are visually timeless.

From the rough tactility of hand-worn leather to the worn glamour of 70s equestrian nods, each FOUND piece is rich in narrative. But unlike most heritage-driven brands that shout, FOUND whispers. It doesn't scream its South Asian heritage — it weaves it. Delicately. Elegantly. With emotional precision and material attention. "I wanted the clothes to feel like they've always been yours," says Faraz. And they do.

The brand's new Utility Capsule is proof of this commitment — combining camo and military-inspired elements with nature hues and strong materials, all made to last. There is function, sure, but also sentiment. A recognition of nature's enduring nature, of cultures that wear their beauty subtly, in worn-in ways.

FOUND's aesthetic is hybrid — a rural American upbringing that's met with Pakistani conventional elegance. Faraz's existence within Central New Jersey, rooted in the textures and rituals of his South Asian-born family, lies at the brand's conceptual foundation. This polarity permeates all garments, be it their carpenter sets done in denim to their horse-chestnut-esque outerwear, with all of them pointing to something more profound than trend.

The result is heirloom-quality pieces that are combined with all the trappings of modern wear, where age-old embroidery collides with today's silhouettes, and horse racing ensembles get remade with floral prints and cut in cotton twill.

But the narrative of the brand isn't only sewn into silhouette — it flows through the hands that craft them. FOUND collaborates with master craftsmen from all over Pakistan, highlighting local crafts and promoting sustainability through conscious production. Fabric cut-offs turn into tags, packaging, even filling. Nothing goes to waste and everything they do is thought out.

And it's also a form of representation that's been undertaken with nuance. While most diaspora designers water down cultural references to make them more marketable, Faraz dives deeper, providing not only visibility but nuance. He doesn't reduce the Pakistani identity to tropes. He honours its multitudes — rural, urban, spiritual, political, and poetic — through clothing that shifts between past and present; East and West, effortlessly.

When SZA wears FOUND in the music video for 'Luther', it's not just a moment — it's a message. The world stage makes space for brown designers who create by drawing on their own cultural blueprint. That storytelling is resistance. It shows us that a varsity jacket, when built with purpose, can hold whole lineages of culture on its back.

Lately everything feels like it has been designed to be forgotten but FOUND has found a way to keep us in touch with what it means to remember and to adorn those memories beautifully.

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