KABUL: Amid tight security, over two dozen young models, including six women, strutted down the catwalk in the garden of a private Kabul villa, proudly displaying the traditional clothing and costumes of Afghanistan’s many ethnic groups.
The audience, about 100 men and women, tightly packed the small space on a recent afternoon, but the mood was as bright as the models’ embroidered tunics and scarves — a scene that would have been unimaginable under Taliban rule.
For the organizer, 22-year-old model and fashion designer Ajmal Haqiqi, putting on the show was worth the risk — despite daily threats of militant attacks in this war-weary capital.
Haqiqi says he was motivated by the desire to show off Afghan culture through the nation’s dazzling abundance of traditional garments and regional costumes. If Afghans regain an awareness of their rich heritage, this could help unite them, he said.
“I told myself, if a suicide bomber attacks us, even if I lose my hands and feet, I will continue on the way that I have chosen,” an exuberant Haqiqi told The Associated Press after the event.
Kabul has seen few fashion shows over the past years, mostly catering to international audiences. Haqiqi’s show was the first all-Afghan enterprise: Afghan models showing Afghan traditional clothing to an all-Afghan audience.
However, the idea of women on display remains mostly taboo in Afghanistan, more than 16 years after the 2001 US assault that ousted the Taliban from power after a repressive five-year reign.
Some women still don’t go outside without wearing blue burqas that cover them from head to toe, leaving only mesh over the eyes. Violence against women is still common, and there are reports of women being stoned, executed in public or imprisoned for having affairs with men. Women have even set themselves on fire to escape domestic violence.
Haqiqi’s group, the Haqiqi Modeling Agency, is a relative newcomer on the country’s small fashion scene but he has appeared on national television on various occasions, such as Independence Day, the Persian New Year, known as Nowruz, and the Muslim holidays of Eid Al-Adha and Eid Al-Fitr.
The agency sells the designs under its own “Haqiqi Brand,” with about 70 percent of the sales going to foreigners and Afghans living aboard.
Atefa Fasihi, 21, joined Haqiqi’s team two years ago and the show was her debut before a live audience. She acknowledged feeling uneasy as heavily armed security guards protected the villa in a western Kabul neighborhood.
“Everybody is scared, but ... we are working to promote our Afghan culture, so I foresee a good future,” Fasihi said.
Husna Sadat, who was in the audience, said the prospect of more such shows is exciting. “If we can change the mentality of our people from all these years of fighting, then I am sure the people can be ready for a better future,” she said.
Kabul has been battered by attacks over recent months, most claimed by the Taliban but some also by an Islamic State affiliate.
Last month, a Taliban suicide bomber rammed his car packed with explosives into a bus carrying government employees in the same western Kabul neighborhood where Haqiqi’s show took place, an area that is home to several private schools and where many politicians reside. The rush hour attack killed 24 people and wounded 42 others.
And on May 31, the city saw its worst suicide bombing since the Taliban collapse — an attack that killed 150 people and wounded scores.
But it was all smiles at the fashion show.
The male models showed off Afghan variants of the shalwar kameez, the men’s long shirt and pants also known as perahan tunban, with turban, pakul or karakul hats. The women wore colorful gand-e-Afghanis, made from softly flowing and intricately embroidered materials, some with matching scarves.
For Amina Sherzad, also in the audience at Haqiqi’s show last week, the mix of the ethnic garments held a message of acceptance.
“It shows that we can accept each other, a model can be a Tajik or a Hazara but can wear the other’s ethnic clothing,” she said, referring to two prominent ethnic minorities. “We are the same.”
Kabul catwalk: Afghan models show off traditional clothing
Kabul catwalk: Afghan models show off traditional clothing
‘I am amplifying our voices,’ Miss Lebanon says ahead of Miss Universe pageant
- Nada Koussa has a psychology master’s and wants to raise awareness of mental health during conflict
- Contest is a way for Lebanon to remain ‘visible on the international stage, rather than being marginalized’
DUBAI: Miss Lebanon Nada Koussa is preparing to compete at the Miss Universe pageant in Mexico on Nov. 16 and she told Arab News why she is participating while her country is “enduring unimaginable suffering” under Israel’s bombardment.
The Miss Universe competition has contestants from more than 130 countries competing, with Koussa among a handful of candidates from the Middle East.
“Representing Lebanon on the international stage is always important, and it becomes even more crucial in times of crisis,” she said.
Israel’s attacks on Lebanon have killed more than 3,000 people in the 13 months of fighting along the border, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health on Nov. 5.
“At first, I hesitated, as I felt leaving would mean stepping away from my humanitarian work — supporting displaced individuals and providing psychological aid in schools and shelters.
“However, by participating in the Miss Universe competition, I am amplifying our voices as Lebanese people who are enduring unimaginable suffering,” the contestant explained in a written response from Mexico.
Koussa hails from the village of Rahbeh in Lebanon and has a master’s degree in clinical psychology.
She was crowned Miss Lebanon in July by a judging panel consisting of eight women: actress Razane Jammal, model and fashion blogger Nour Arida, interior designer Diane Ghandour, model and socialite Georgina Rizk, Dr. Petra Khoury, socialite Paola Pharaon Rizk, TV presenter Raya Abirached and restaurateur Mireille Hayek.
Koussa hopes to use the Miss Universe stage to highlight the importance of mental health, especially during times of crisis and conflict.
“Lebanon has endured many hardships, and I am dedicated to raising awareness about the need for psychological support for those affected by trauma,” she explained.
“Since the onset of the conflict, I have focused on providing mental health support to families most impacted, visiting schools to assist both children and adults,” she added.
Koussa joins Miss Egypt Logina Salah and Miss Bahrain Shereen Ahmed from the Arab world. All three are currently in Mexico on a promotional tour before the pageant kicks off this week.
“This is also a way to ensure that Lebanon remains visible on the international stage, rather than being marginalized,” Koussa said.
Rita Ora flaunts Saudi label at MTV Europe Music Awards
DUBAI: British singer Rita Ora hosted the 2024 MTV Europe Music Awards in Manchester on Sunday, and she hit the red carpet before the show in a suitably loud look by Saudi couturier Mohammed Ashi.
Hailing from his label Ashi Studio’s Fall/ Winter 2024 Couture line, the peach gown featured strands of hair-like tassels that enveloped Ora on the red carpet.
Ashi’s Fall/ Winter 2024 Couture line is called “Sculpted Clouds” — it was showcased at Paris Haute Couture Week in June.
Ashi became the first couturier from the Gulf to join the Federation de la Haute Couture in Paris as a guest member in 2023.
Meanwhile, Taylor Swift led the way at the awards show in Manchester on Sunday, picking up four awards on a night dominated by female artists, including Tyla and Sabrina Carpenter, AFP reported.
The ceremony's 30th edition, which brought the biggest names in world music to northwest England, saw Swift take home trophies for best artist, best live, best US act and best video for her collaboration with Post Malone in "Fortnight."
In a pre-recorded message, Swift expressed sadness for not being able to attend in person but said the honor was "just unbelievable".
Tyla won three awards, including for best R&B, while Carpenter won for best song.
Swift, whose ongoing "Eras" tour is the most lucrative in history, was nominated in seven categories following the release this year of her 11th album "The Tortured Poets Department," according to AFP.
In the best artist category she went up against compatriots Beyonce, Billie Eilish and Post Malone, and British star Raye, who won a record six gongs at this year's Brit Awards. Carpenter, one of the stars of the summer with her hit "Please Please Please," completed the list of nominees.
While Swift won that category, Carpenter's "Espresso" took best song, outshining Eilish's "Birds of a Feather", Beyonce's "Texas Hold 'Em," "Beautiful Things" by Benson Boone, Chappell Roan's "Good Luck, Babe!" and "We Can't Be Friends" by Ariana Grande.
As with the US music industry's Grammy awards, Latino artists, including stars such as Puerto Rican Bad Bunny and Colombian Karol G were left out of the top categories this year despite their global hits.
Both were contenders in the best Latin field, alongside Shakira, who has revived her career with the hit "Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53", about her separation from ex-footballer Gerard Pique.
Zuhair Murad dresses Jennifer Lopez, Sara Sampaio at Hollywood events
DUBAI: Lebanese designer Zuhair Murad has had a busy week in Hollywood, dressing three stars for their red carpet turns.
Portuguese model and actress Sara Sampaio, US actress Jessica Alba and pop icon Jennifer Lopez all opted for looks by Zuhair Murad at various events.
Both Alba and Sampaio showed off Resort 2025 looks at the Baby2Baby Gala in Los Angeles.
While model Sampaio’s look was an all-black, floor-grazing number with a thigh-high slit, “Trigger Warning” actress Alba hit the red carpet in a diaphanous gown with sequins embroidered across the length of the dress.
Oscar winning actress, producer and philanthropist Charlize Theron received the Giving Tree Award at the organization’s annual glitzy fundraiser. According to Baby2Baby, the honor is given to a public figure “who has demonstrated exceptional commitment to improving the lives of children in need.”
Theron joined previous recipients including Salma Hayek Pinault, Kim Kardashian, Kerry Washington, Jennifer Garner, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jessica Alba, Kate Hudson, Amy Adams, Drew Barrymore, Chrissy Teigen and Vanessa Bryant.
Over to the premiere of “Wicked” in Los Angeles on Saturday night and Lopez walked the red carpet in a gown from Zuhair Murad’s Spring/Summer 2024 Couture line. She accessorized with jewelry by luxury Indian label Sabyasachi.
The Ras Baalbek-born couturier and the singer-actress have a long-standing relationship, with Lopez wearing the designer’s creations to countless events and award ceremonies.
She previously opened up about her affinity for Murad’s designs, describing the couturier as “probably her favorite designer” in a past interview with Venture Lifestyle.
Lopez attended the Hollywood premiere of Jon M. Chu’s much anticipated, star-studded musical epic “Wicked.”
Also in attendance were Part 1‘s main cast, including powerhouse duo Ariana Grande (who portrays Glinda the Good Witch) and Cynthia Erivo (playing Elphaba), as well as Jonathan Bailey, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum and Ethan Slater.
Model Mona Tougaard stars in cruise collection campaign
DUBAI: Danish model Mona Tougaard this week shared her latest collaboration with Louis Vuitton on Instagram, showcasing the French luxury brand’s Women’s Cruise 2025 collection.
Set in Barcelona, the collection draws from Spanish architectural styles, with the brand’s post referring to the new releases as “an ode to the art of travel.”
In one of the photos, Tougaard wore a fitted black sleeveless bodysuit paired with voluminous black shorts, accentuated by a wide white belt with a bold buckle. Her accessories include a structured black handbag with metallic accents, a wide-brimmed white hat and knee-high brown boots.
In another shot, she wore a loose, long-sleeved white blouse with wide cuffs, paired with sleek black trousers. She completed the look with a pastel-blue Louis Vuitton handbag in a structured, boxy shape featuring the brand’s signature “LV” logo in metallic detail, along with a wide-brimmed black hat.
The campaign was shot by British photographer Jamie Hawkesworth and showcases notable Barcelona landmarks, including Antoni Gaudi’s La Pedrera and Park Guell, as well as the Fundacio Joan Miro.
Each location reflects Louis Vuitton artistic director Nicolas Ghesquiere’s choice to highlight bold, structured silhouettes.
This is not Tougaard’s first collaboration with Louis Vuitton. In 2023, she appeared in a high-profile campaign for the brand’s LV Archlight 2.0 collection, alongside US rapper Jaden Smith, actress Chloe Grace Moretz and Chinese footballer Sam Li Sirong. She has also walked the runway for Louis Vuitton many times.
Tougaard began her modeling career in 2017 after winning the Elite Model Look Denmark competition at just 15. Since then, she has established herself as a prominent figure in fashion, working with renowned designers and luxury brands such as Prada, Fendi, Chanel, Loewe and Valentino.
In June, Tougaard was appointed artistic talent director for Berlin-based magazine-turned-fashion label 032c’s menswear spring/summer 2025 collection.
“Tougaard is an inherent member of the 032c universe, who has starred on our magazine covers, our editorials and our previous FW-24 show. It is an organic progression to involve Tougaard more closely in 032c’s creative processes together with creative director Maria Koch and fashion director Ras Bartram,” the brand announced in a post at the time.
Inside Elie Saab’s fashion empire ahead of his Riyadh showcase
- Ahead of his show in Riyadh this week, Arab News looks back at the acclaimed Lebanese designer’s career
DUBAI: Reinvention is a term the fashion world is very familiar with: Heads of houses come and go, archival signatures are foraged and flipped, collections strategically expanded or cut according to social media impressions or sales success. For most brands there’s a continuous necessity to pivot. Not Elie Saab. The Lebanese designer has cleverly curated an empire with slow, measured precision, bolstered by an absolute belief in the art of craftsmanship.
“The code of my collections will always remain the same,” the glamour-focused Saab has often stated, referring to his luxury pairing of Western silhouettes with a Middle Eastern flair for ornamentation and embellishment. Rather than reinvent the wheel, he fine-tunes, dreaming up multi-generational investment pieces that are studied, worked and tweaked to perfection — an approach that has garnered him a loyal following and an impressive 45-year legacy.
To mark this anniversary (and simultaneously show some love to his longtime Saudi supporters), Saab is joining forces with Riyadh Season to host what promises to be an immersive one-of-a-kind fashion spectacle in the Saudi capital on Nov. 13. Titled “1001 Seasons of Elie Saab” — a nod to the famed “One Thousand and One Nights” collection of Arabic folktales — the event will forgo a standard runway presentation in favor of a theatrically orchestrated tableau of models, live music and 300 fresh looks for Fall 2025.
“We will be preparing something unprecedented and new to mark this important occasion,” Saab said during a press conference in London earlier this year, “and celebrate the city of Riyadh as it continues to support creativity and the diversity of culture in the region.”
Whether by way of the soundtrack, set design or the clothing itself (which will be styled by former French Vogue editor, Carine Roitfeld), a nod to his hosts’ aesthetic sensibilities seems inevitable. After all, his relationship with the Kingdom is an important one, cemented last year with the opening of a spacious flagship store in VIA Riyadh that carries his most recent ready-to-wear and bridal collections, childrenswear, accessories and fragrances, in addition to a private haute couture salon. The space itself — all white walls, marble floors and plush carpets — was designed and furnished by another of his exploits, Elie Saab Maison.
Such a broad portfolio might be the norm for fashion’s biggest conglomerates with major financial backing, the likes of LVMH or Kering, say, but in Saab’s case, as an independent designer, it’s especially impressive given where he started from. Born and raised in Damour, a coastal suburb of Beirut, he was barely 10 years old when he began teaching himself how to sew. Apart from a single year spent at a fashion school in Paris, his education was shaped by instinct, imagination and circumstance. Long before the rest of the fashion world woke up to their environmental misdemeanours, Saab was dressing his sister in scraps of fabrics from their mother’s closet. Sustainable design was simply a necessity.
In 1982, aged 18, he opened his own studio in war-torn Beirut — an act of loyalty to the city he refers to as his “Queen” — and navigated his way through a civil war that had been raging in Lebanon since 1975, displacing almost a million people including members of Saab’s own family. His commitment to his heritage, to the Lebanese people, their resilience, optimism and creativity, is unshakeable. Following the Beirut Port blast on Aug. 4, 2020, which caused 218 deaths, thousands of injuries and US$15 billion in property damage, Saab responded with a tribute collection titled “Beyrouth, Source Eternelle.”
“I want people to talk about Beirut in a positive way,” he told Arab News in March 2021, “and remember that (the city) is not all those bad things they are seeing.”
Saab’s determination to make the best of a truly bad situation is a common trait in his country where, despite it all, creativity is flourishing. Beirut remains the region’s home of couture, spawning a design collective that includes Zuhair Murad, Georges Hobeika, Georges Chakra and Rabih Kayrouz, plus an ever-expanding roster of rising talent: Racil, Roni Helou, Hussein Bazaza, Cynthia Merhej, and Sandra Mansour, who trained under Saab and recognises his influence within her choice of diaphanous fabrics and delicate embroidery.
“The biggest lesson I learned (from working with Saab) is the importance of staying true to your vision,” says Mansour. “He has always had a deep understanding of what women want to feel when they wear a dress — powerful, elegant, and confident — and his attention to detail and craftsmanship is unmatched…that’s what makes it timeless.”
Halle Berry brought Saab to the attention of Hollywood when she accepted her 2002 Academy Award in a standout sheer embroidered gown with a crimson taffeta skirt of his design. Since then, he has found himself dressing everyone from Middle Eastern royalty (Queen Rania of Jordan famously wore one of his gowns for her coronation ceremony in 1999) to Julia Roberts and Beyoncé.
“It is true that I know all of them and that we are friends — the person matters to me and how the relationship started and goes on,” Saab told Arab News in March 2021. “When you deal with Meryl Streep, (for example), even with all her glory and despite all the awards she has won, you feel how simple she is. I like people who are modest.”
“Fast-fashion,” “trend-led” and “disposable” are not part of Saab’s vocabulary and despite an increasingly digitally focused market, he remains one of few designers able to prioritize perfectionism and the personal touch. A year after his Oscars moment, he became the first Arab designer to be admitted to the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture in Paris, where he continues to present his most creatively elaborate work. For now, though, fashion’s spotlight and the female gaze is set firmly on Saab’s return to Riyadh and a hotly anticipated front row.
