The best collections at a fashion show are the innovative ones, playing along the lines of international appeal but still encapsulating the traditional silhouettes and crafts.
There are pretty designer wears and wearable ones but then there are those that push the fashion envelope, setting aside any commercial concerns and diving into a new blend of colour, craft or technique.
Experimenting with fabric and couture is the haute trend in fashion but creating wearable pieces with edgy structure is what makes a designer a fashion aficionado. Qatar’s fashion industry, too, enjoys these moments and often delivers a heady whiff of innovative fashion.
Maserati Qatar recently organised a fashion event at its showroom, The Pearl-Qatar, featuring an exclusive Ramadan collection by Qatari designer label Al Bacarrat Fashion. Amid the traditional late dinner, exclusively for women only, the event was organised by Ali al-Sayer, fashion director. The hair and makeup was done by Maison De Joelle Qatar.
The collection had a bohemian tribal vibe, a laidback glamour that screamed “easy breezy”, clothes for the modern girl who loves fast fashion even in her formal evening wear and wardrobe.
Traditional embroideries were placed in unconventional ways around necklines, pockets and chiffon gowns that were sewn with perfection for a flowing silhouette.
There were vivid tie-n-dyes, block prints, gota, pearls, and dashes of brocade and while one is familiar with all these design elements, Bacarrat’s prowess lies in breathing new life into them.
The colour play, the geometric patchwork, the mix of gota-pearl-print-embroidery and the cutting-edge, neat silhouettes all worked out into a line that proves that the designer is quite there to make to the top of its game.
Many Kaftan-like pieces caterwauled modest fashion.
Nothing too revealing, nothing too under the fabric.
It was a perfect balance that started with vertical linings in blue, transformed into grey and ended with the tail of black.
The knee length gowns with tukri, gota and mirror-work, the capes and the shirts glistening with heavy-duty embroideries were beautiful and thematically continued to follow the ‘folk’ theme, but sometimes one could feel a bit too much of hanging tassels and applique work repeated on net, repeatedly.
And that is a wrap, fashion wise. One can perhaps sit back and say that now the fashion episode have ended finally for the season; that started off with Fashion Trust Arabia and was followed by the Heya exhibition.
Or is it? With the lucrative wedding season and Eid right around the corner, one never knows if there’s yet another fashion show ready to unfurl the runway once again, waiting right around the corner.
Snapshots from the fashion event organised by Maserati Qatar. PICTURES: Jayan Orma
