REGIONAL ATELIERS REINVENT THE NORM IN PARIS
▶ Haute Couture Week recently returned to the French capital and a sprinkling of modern Arab designers offered something a cut above the rest. Sarah Maisey reveals the names to know – or to know better
Ashi Studio
Mohammed Ashi was the first fashion designer from Saudi Arabia to be invited to join the Parisian haute couture schedule last summer. At the recent showcase in the French capital, he unveiled his latest offering under its auspices for spring 2024.
Titled Ink Sculpture, the compact show – a mere 20 looks – was once again where Ashi explored what is clearly a fascination for him: how shape and form relate to the body. Told in a palette of only three colours, black, gold and ivory, the story began with a sharply tailored trouser suit densely worked in black sequins. This had a trail of tulle ruffles coming from one sleeve that was long enough to be carried in the other hand, adding a strangely beautiful asymmetry.
A look of black palazzo pants followed, worn underneath a tuxedo gilet of tightly packed ruffles, which sat high and on the shoulders. Next was a diaphanous chiffon baby doll, again in black, with gorgeous dropped-shoulder sleeves that had extra volume as exaggerated ruffs around the neck, cuffs and hem.
A pale gold bandeau top and widelegged trousers – completely smothered in beading – had their own sequinned cape held at the neck via a choker, setting up the next series of dresses that were air-filled, ivory silk confections, plumped and twisted around the body inside, or as oversized sleeves on a mini dress.
A tailored short suit, meanwhile, was so technically brilliant, that its sleeves were opened and deconstructed to become their own heavy swing coat. It was a remarkable feat of fabric engineering.
More volume was built around the necklines of a form-fitted dress, while one outfit looked like it had exploded outward. Other looks came constructed as layers of bell-shaped skirts piled on top of each other like some new, exotic species of jellyfish. Underneath all this volume, however, Ashi is a highly skilled tailor. This was best seen as a body-hugging black velvet torso paired with a floor-length skirt of loops of beads, which was both imposing and impossibly delicate.
The final look, the traditional bride, arrived in a pared-back sheath dress, with a simple scooped neckline and slits up either side.
The simplicity of the cut gave space for the handiwork to be seen, a dense surface of pale golden beads that left the material weighty and stiff, as a clever counterpoint.
This was only the designer’s second outing in haute couture, yet he is already demonstrating the vast skills at his disposal. Haute couture may be a small, rarefied universe, one that caters to a small number of clients, but these clients fully understand and appreciate the precision that lies behind each and every piece of clothing. Ashi’s is a talent studio that should have the order book filling up quickly.
Zuhair Murad
For his latest haute couture collection, Lebanese designer Murad looked back at his nation’s history and the long-gone days of Phoenicia. Inspired by the “timeless spirit of an inventive civilisation”, Murad drew on Lebanon’s location on the Mediterranean Sea, conjuring an “ode to light, waves, wind, marine sparkles and the gentle amber of Mediterranean sunsets”.
This sparkle was translated, literally, as intense beadwork that cascaded down outfits, molten metallic fabrics that wrapped around the body and hypnotic, swaying fringes of sequins. In varying shades of gold and silvers that went from almost translucent to deep pewter, along with nudes, taupe and even a raspberry red, the effect felt like an affirmation of life. The opening look was a silver halter-neck,
floor-length fitted dress that looked like it was put together from looped threads of metallic beads. A dress and long skirt took their patterning from a mosaic floor, recreated now in thousands of pale beads.
Many looks came with boxy, squared-off shoulders, which added a sense of power, while the drapery of togas arrived as fabric hung from one shoulder, sparking a set of deeply inventive drapes, including one attached to the wrist.
Most of the looks were backless, traversed by simple bandeau straps of sequins, the fragile tracery of mosaics, or the lines of faux jewellery all made in beads, while others were framed with deep cowls of material.
With folds of fabric softly wrapped around the hips, or left to flow behind as trains or long sleeves, this collection was highly polished and unapologetically sensual. In other words, signature Murad.
Elie Saab
Looking to Marrakesh and its “magic and allure”, Lebanese designer Saab offered a collection that shimmered like an oasis. Using fabrics that were almost entirely matte, each look danced with light thanks to thousands of beads and sequins – applied by hand – in silver or gold.
The dusty colours of the vibrant Moroccan city arrived as faded periwinkle blue, a soft pink seemingly bleached by the sun, a light green and a wash of sunflower yellow. Even the rich tones of terracotta here were softened into something that felt old and steeped in history.
Already a dab hand at red carpet dressing, Saab folded the Moroccan djellaba into his lexicon, uplifting it into an elegant over-robe, smothered in decadent beading and held at the waist with a tiny, beaded belt.
In another look, it was opened into a cape with the hood trailing down the back as part of an evening dress. Another mini cape appeared, covered in flowers made from feathers, as elsewhere other dresses seemed to exist only as a lattice of beadwork held together by translucent chiffon, creating a beautiful, weighted swing of the hem with each step.
Saab is in his element with haute couture where he started as a designer. This was an exquisite collection by a man at the apogee of his powers.
Rami Al Ali
While not part of the official haute couture schedule, Syrian designer Al Ali also unveiled his high-end collection in Paris at one of the many spinoff events happening off-calendar.
The opening look was a prime example of Al Ali’s skill in sculptural cutting, as a fitted dress in dark cream arrived with a tiered, asymmetric cowl collar hung off one shoulder. It was finished with huge, cuffed sleeves decorated with tone-on-tone beading.
More structural shapes appeared as a wonderful corset dress in a burnt coral colour, which had a carved, rigid top half over a diaphanous skirt. The same colour also arrived as a dress made of layered slices of gossamer chiffon, that had fulsome, rounded sleeves.
Al Ali, who now lives and works in Dubai, also called on the distinctive crosshatch of the Arab keffiyeh for two of his looks – one for men and one for women. The women’s look had the patterning picked out in black, lozenge-shaped crystals on a pale grey ground, falling away as it reached to the floor. Finished with a sweep of black chiffon at the neckline, it was teamed with earrings that echoed traditional tribal jewellery.
For men, the same lozenge-shaped crystals came in brown on a sheer chiffon robe of the same colour.
Clearly, the designer felt compelled to nod to the long and proud history of Arab culture amid the bombardment of Gaza.
Georges Hobeika
The Lebanese designer’s label showed its spring 2024 haute couture offerings on day one in the French capital.
The Hobeika show stayed true to the brand’s DNA of glamorous occasion wear. Speaking to an ultra-wealthy clientele with a busy social calendar, the show featured a 1960s theme, complete with bouffant hairdos.
In a palette that shifted from honeyed nudes through pale lilacs and soft pinks, via seafoam greens into deep, decadent blues and on to fiery red, this was a wardrobe for a multifaceted woman. There were snappy day suits in what looked like pink tweed, but were actually a hand-sequinned facsimile; day coats in peppy red; and fragile-looking gossamer gowns in floaty chiffon – all embellished by countless hours of hand-stitched embroidery and beadwork lavished on to the surfaces (this is Parisian haute couture, after all).
In 2022, Hobeika senior was joined by his son Jad as co-creative director, as the house looked to broaden its appeal to a younger audience.
This was best illustrated by the pared-back looks such as a bright red strapless gown in high-shine satin that was stripped of all decoration; as well as a fitted dress in buttermilk tones with a simple boat neck, its beadwork pooled around the cuffs and skirt hem.
Perhaps best of all, some of these looks were also worn with flat shoes.
Hobeika is known for its intricate, impeccable surface embellishment, of which there was plenty presented here. From a dress with blue-on-white swirling patterning that felt like Yuan dynasty ceramics, to red sequins that shifted across the body – dense here, lighter there – to the elbow-length opera gloves that had sequins scattered up the arm, fading away in colour and all done in hand-stitched sequins and beading, the effect was utterly ravishing.
With workshops in Beirut and Paris – and not one but two creative directors – the house of Hobeika is entering a new era. And if the elegant, dressy, sassy couture offering from Paris is anything to go by, that new era looks beautiful indeed.
Maison Sara Chraibi
The house from Moroccan designer Sara Chraibi, which also took to the runway on day one, delivered an elegant show at the Theatre du Chatelet.
It was a celebration of colours that riffed on the desert in fawn, sand, gold and sienna, through to the blues and greens of the evening sky. Chraibi was one of the guest designers invited to be part of the storied haute couture schedule. Almost every look sent out was full length and laden with evening drama, with many finished with matching capes.
There were elegant draped dresses in molten gold and glossy sienna brown, which had fabric twisted around the neck and shoulders. These were interspersed with chiffon, some held in a lattice of golden beadwork, others smothered in dense black sequins.
An opera coat was printed to echo a vaulted passageway with an arched ceiling, recreated in sublime shades of pinky blush and metallics, with the same image reappearing on a sleeveless dress. To help ramp up the air of sophisticated drama, many looks were entirely backless – the chiffon twisted and pinned to fall away from the shoulders.
In a game of opposites, tailored coats and languid kaftans had golden embroidery that snaked like topography across the surface, while some flowing chiffon looks were cut to sit right to the arm.
More chiffon was caught in triangles at the waist, in autumnal shades of ochre, sandy brown, burnt umber and coffee. The same colours later appeared as swaying fringing on a bodice, over a long skirt, and as a glossy, floor-length fringed cape – the tendrils held in place with golden jewellery. Adding to the whole effect were the models’ lacquered hairstyles, which were flipped under to create a wide updo that ended just under the ears. It was a style that deftly nodded to the traditional cuts of Moroccan Berbers.
Chraibi creates her collections around the colours and cultures of her native Morocco, and this latest offering delved into those desert lands beautifully. Rich, densely worked and sublimely sophisticated, this was an ode to the landscapes of North Africa.