Centre stage in Dubai
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Canadian designer celebrates his unisex styles for first time at Arab Fashion Week
WHILE FEMALE designers stole most of the show at last weekend’s Arab Fashion Week in Dubai, Canadian-Jordanian designer Rad Hourani showed his skill at breaking boundaries, starting with gender.
His revolutionary unisex garments were showcased in the Middle East for the first time ever during a show last weekend at Arab Fashion Week in Dubai.
In thick pieces of material tied up in different styles, male and female models walked down the runway wearing dark sunglasses.
The 34-year-old, an invited member of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture in Paris, was the first ever designer to present a unisex haute couture collection in 2013.
His Spring-Summer 2017 collection presented in Dubai is a reworked mix of his past archives and aims to showcase the “timelessness” of his 10-year-old gender-less works, the soft-spoken designer, wearing a simple black cotton T-shirt and matching trousers, said.
“People didn’t really understand it [unisex] at the beginning,” he said. “They were always asking which pieces are for men and which pieces are for women.”
“I had to work very hard in the past 10 years to communicate the neutral unisex vision,” which has become his signature style, he said.
Hourani said that for the show he re-edited his old collections “in a new way, adding new forms and new shapes”.
Behind his work, Hourani has his own unbounded philosophy or “vision”, as he likes to call it.
“I live in a way which is free of the limitations of gender, race, age or nations,” he said. “I see the world as one place and I see the people as one as well.”
While his fabrics are generally cotton satin, silk, and crepe, he used a plastic-like material for his Dubai collection and added bright colours – a change from his usually monochrome palette of black, white, grey, and blue.
“This time it’s more of a fun show” with the models even appearing wrapped up “like gifts” to celebrate the decade he has spent in the industry, Hourani said with a grin.
Nora, a Frenchwoman of Arab origin, said: “We don’t have this kind of fashion here in the Middle East ... I see it as a bit special,” she said. “To understand this kind of design you need to ... understand the designer himself, how he thinks.”
But the designer said he does have Arab clients. “I see a great evolution” in the Arab world in terms of fashion. “We have Emirati clients”, male and female and of different ages.
Female designers from ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia were front row, centre in Dubai.
Models strutted the catwalk in mini-dresses, cropped jackets, skin-tight jeans and flamboyantly embroidered transparent blouses.
They were the work of Suzan Farhoud and her daughter Leen al-Shieshakly, who set up their “Jeans Couture” brand just a year ago, hoping to share their passion for denim.
Farhoud designs the clothes, while Shieshakly creates bags and manages the business.
“We wanted the Saudis ... not to look at denim in a casual way,” Shieshakly said, but also to “wear it for a formal event”.
“We wanted to get the denim into the Saudi market as well as the Middle East,” said the US-educated 26-year-old.
Their collection, named “Out of the Garden”, mixes the fabric with almost everything.
They have created denim tops, trousers, jackets, and dresses – many covered with colourful light flowing capes or skirts.
“I always loved jeans,” said Farhoud, who wore a long dress that mixed a denim top with a light flowery skirt and sleeves. “I always thought of garments with jeans that I wouldn’t find anywhere.”
Their casual designs contrasted with those of Saudi designer Arwa al-Ammari whose style mixes luxury with elegance and art.
Her models drew everyone’s gaze as they walked down the catwalk in dresses, coats, skirts and tops of structured, layered fabric.
Elegant enough for an English tea party, her designs were decorated with leaves, flowers, and even big birds.
“I loved arts, so I started a fashion line inspired by art,” she said of her ArAm brand, which launched in 2013.
“This collection was inspired by tropical nature – the colours and figures such as the birds and flowers and even iguanas,” said the British-educated designer.
Caroline Rush, chief executive of the British Fashion Council, said she believes conservative designs are gaining traction in the West.
“I think that modest fashion is certainly something that is growing in the Western world,” she said.
She described the Saudi designers’ collections as “very different in terms of style but very open”.
