Fashion Forward attracts GCC fashionistas

Last week, Dubai’s crème de la crème, socialites and fashionistas put on their fancy towering heels, with even fancier purses and edgy outfits and headed to the luxurious Madinet Jumeirah ballrooms, racing with their pointed heels to be seated front row (FROW, as termed by the fashionable crowd) at the continuously growing fashion event “The Fashion Forward”. The Fashion Forward (FFWD) can be considered as Dubai’s fashion week, but choosing to be different as everything else in Dubai, the founders decided to carry a different name other than the cosmopolitan fashion week. For more than 10 days the hashtag #FFWD was trending all over social media.
The FFWD kicked off exactly a year ago with three seasons of outstanding success, which has crossed borders. Many big names in fashion journalism and blogging (such as Bryanboy and NYFW’s Fern Mells) gathered in Dubai to see what all the fuss is about. Organizers claimed to have welcomed more than 18,000 guests this season. Such a crowd was expected, given this is a country that spends over $ 8 billion on luxury shopping.
We arrived at Madinet Jumeirah at 3 p.m., where the organizers had just announced the opening of the Garden, a retail space annexed to the event hosting around 60 regional designers from all over the Middle East. This overwhelming roundup featured an eclectic mix of accessories of some of the well-established brands from Dubai-based designer Zayan Ghandour, the Lebanese duo Vanina, Sarah’s Bag, to younger talented start-ups like Nada Akram and Dalia Hamdallah. The event commenced with a fashionable “shoes talk” hosted by the world’s largest shoes district “LEVEL” team in Dubai Mall. The talk addressed shoe businesses. The conversation was conducted by Level’s principal Rania Al-Masri along with A. Oliveros, head buyer and Lebanese shoe designer Anneis Eunis. Following the talk, a fabulous private party at the VIP lounge was thrown by Level, celebrating the inauguration of the event.
After the party it was time for us to see some serious fashion walking down the catwalks of Madinet Jumeirah. So we headed down to the KAGE show where two young childhood friends Arwa Abdul Hady and Basma Abu Ghazalh have been successfully engraving their names deeply into Dubai’s younger fashionistas. We were so excited about that particular show, knowing the designer’s soft background and the use of minimal elements to create a different design. However, compared to their last two seasonal collections, their latest was the least impressive. The collection was inspired from the 90’s. The models were sent out to the catwalk with messy bed hair and simple cut ensembles. The fabric used was mainly plain paired with a touch of colorful brocade print. We felt that KAGE is imprisoned in a bubble of their own making. Nevertheless what was obvious is that they need to get out of it for their next collection.
Separated by quite a few hours was the Ezra show, the Filipino designer’s show was the perfect finale for FFWD’s first day, leaving the audience covered from head to toe with artificial white snow. The aspiring Filipino artist wanted his audience to step with him into his inspirational world of the richly cultured Moroccan Saharah deserts. Ezra carefully mixed his silky romantic evening gown with what can be described as savage barbarian inspired silver accessories, which we imagined a barbarian princess would wear for an urban party in our own time.
As for day two, the main highlights were the Essa Walla and Rami Kadi shows. Walla, the very well-celebrated Indian designer, gave us a very different collection than what was expected from him. This season, compared to his previous dreamy collection, was very edge cutting. The last collection was dominated by soft lace and cameo brooches; we can say that this one was dominated by colored feathers, fur, leather and gold brooches. Furthermore, the collection was very diverse designed for the uber chic party girl who loves color and is not afraid to mix neon pink leather with yellow fur.
By evening, one of the most anticipated shows was probably one of the most talked about shows. The Rami Al-Kadi show, famous for his constant collaboration with Lebanese pop star Miryaim Fares was featured. The Lebanese celebrity designer succeeded in transforming the humble catwalk into a fiction princess’s fairy tale castle. At the beginning of the show, the audience’s eyes were centered on the upper wall, where a very short animated movie played, detailing the “Enchanted Kingdom” fairy tale story behind the collection; after that the models started emerging from the backstage crowing their blonde heads with fresh floral crowns, walking in their classic silhouetted evening dresses, but with a very contemporary fabric to give an impeccable twist. Rami knew how to manipulate this season’s pastel color palette with golden barcode print.
Day three was very busy and even more crowded than the previous ones. The program started with Grazia emerging talent show, which was picked by Grazia magazine’s readers. Following that Aram, a young student of Esmod, who made sure her first fashion collection would be stuck in people’s minds for a long time took over the stage. We felt like we were invited to a girly romantic tea party in the middle of a secret garden, with real tea, cupcakes and a macaroon tower on a table centering the catwalk, and models sliding flawlessly in tulle pastel midi-full skirts and satin blue and nude dresses, showing us Aram’s simple yet promising collection. Moving to a more simple show, Tahir Sultan played with three different shades of grey redesigning a new concept of chic sweats and more wearable designs that you could actually sport to your office, or wear comfortably under your abaya.
Fashion forward wouldn’t be complete without Zayan The Label show. The originally Lebanese designer Zayan Al-Ghandour is not just the successful business woman behind Dubai’s most famous contemporary boutique (S*uce), Zayan is also a well-established designer and one of the founders of Dubai Design District foundation. This time Zayan’s show was themed “I want a fairy tale”, distributing funky hats before the show among the audience and with loud cheerful music. Zayan always knows how to please her audience. Grey sweatshirts and maxi cotton funky dresses, Zayan’s signature tutu skirts, fur coats and borrowed Sophia Webster’s clutches, with all of these Zayan ensured she keeps herself on top of the Middle East’s designers list.
For the grand finale, Amato stole the audience’s hearts and minds with a magnificent dramatic show, with a Shakespearean entrance, and clusters of colors, blues, greens, reds and yellows. We could see a sophisticated mix of authentic cultures, from Indian to Bedouin to African. The perfectly tailored and embroidered pieces ranged from full length dresses, to cropped tops and hot shorts. The accessories were of course on the unwearable side, but Amato doesn’t care about this fact. The Divas’ couturier who once dressed Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce and many more, just designs to capture breaths and steal the lights. Fashion Forward ended in style leaving fashion lovers from all over the globe hungry for more runways and panel talks and wondering what could the multi-national team behind the FFWD offer them for the next season.

[email protected]