Stories From Arabia takes over De Vere Grand Connaught Rooms to indulge London in Middle Eastern culture, fashion and musings.
Saturday, February 16th, 18:30 Connaught Rooms, London, WC2B 5DA
Stories From Arabia is the largest platform encompassing elite fashion designers from Arabia during London Fashion Week. Founded by Jalila Elmastouki, Stories from Arabia’s vision is to highlight and expose the incredible work of designers from Arabia. Four designers from The Middle East take the global stage at London Fashion Week to showcase their intricate collections rich in traditional techniques, bold with the colours of their region and an overall ode to their roots. After four successful editions, Stories From Arabia continue to create diversity within the London Fashion Week. Designers were featured in leading international magazines such as VOGUE magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, HOLA magazine, STYLE magazine and more.
ATELIER ZUHRA
Saturday, February 16th, 20:30
Connaught Rooms, London, WC2B 5DA
Atelier Zuhra is a home for fashionable women. Dedicated, motivated and creative when it comes to their chosen craft, Atelier Zuhra is bringing another exceptional collection to the global fashion stage that is rich with colour and meaning.
SOIREE
Saturday, February 16th, 21:00
Connaught Rooms, London, WC2B 5DA
An elegant affair in association with The British Fashion Council to celebrate the designer showcase. Refreshments and drinks will be served.
DIANA BATTIKHA
Luxury eyewear brand Diana Battikha was built on a shared passion for style and quality. Designing handcrafted polarised lenses, Diana Battikha combines impeccable craftsmanship with irrefutably chic styles, framing some of the culture’s most recognizable faces. This season’s collection Shark arrives just in time for the runway. Inspired by the simultaneous angular and agile shape of the line’s eponymous predator, Diana Battikha creates a set of fierce accessories. “Style is a way to say who you are without having to speak”, which Battikha emblematizes with Swarovski crystal embellished eyewear, the peak of glittering luxury.
EAU
The final piece to EAU’s three-part collection will hit the runway for the AW19 season. Aspiring to create a blended vision of streetwear and tailoring, EAU offers a look appropriate for any occasion, able to dress down and up depending on the moment. A subtle playfulness meets classic streetwear to celebrate perpetual growth. Garment construction from cotton, tulle, and scuba form the skeleton of the collection. While P1 and P2 saw heavy uses of blue, P3 sees flashes of fuchsia and pink, serving as a gentle but firm expression of the wildness of youth. The phrase “don’t judge me” appears in the collection as both paroxysm and mantra; EAU’s designs encourage connection to the garments themselves, but also the larger culture shifting towards a more universal empathy.
“It is undoubtedly a privilege for any young designer to showcase at such an important globally acknowledged event. We truly believe LFW will be a great opportunity to learn. We are taking this opportunity humbly, as we always want to improve.”
NAJWA AL FADHLI
For Najwa Al Fadhli, AW19 brings Unexpected Dreams to life. Aiming to express modern luxury, the collection highlights the feminine without falling into the classic couture traps so prevalent to uninitiated designers. Najwa Al Fadhli gives a-line silhouettes and mermaid cuts a fresh start, maintaining a clean finish while surprising the audience with twisted classic designs.
“Every woman must live an unexpected dream; a dream I’ve made my collection”
SHEREENS
Acting as a point of international intersection, Shereens ready-to-wear line mixes the elegance of Arab design with the stylistic modernism of the West to preserve a unique type of femininity. Rooted in an understanding of fashion’s cultural significance in individual identity, designer Shereen Al Othaina wants to create meaningfully prestigious designs: “Taking part in the London Fashion Week is an important thing that all designers of the world dream of.” This season, the collection is dominated by the use of jacquard with pieces that offer women a modern luxurious style.
Autumn Winter 2019
Show Production: Stories From Arabia
Hair: Michael Jane
Makeup: Saira Hussain
Photographer: Simon Armstrong