Wednesday, June 8, 2011

INSIGHT: PROJECT ABAYA.. WELCOME TO THE MID EAST


Everyone's familiar with Project runway, judges, models, designers, limited time, outrageous designs and the occasional celebrity guests making demands. Well for the past 3 years MBC has been hosting a very similar competition titled "Persil Abaya Shampoo - Arwa'a Abaya III: Mission Innovation" which basically translates into "The Fanciest Abaya", where local designers are tested on their design skills, their craftsmanship and their ability to work realllly quick in designing Abayas.

A couple of weeks ago I met with the Abaya designer Amal Murad, who heads up the judging panel, along with other bloggers, where we were introduced to the competition and the concept behind it and asked to be the judging panel's "online voice". So I'll be posting the looks and picking the best desgin every few weeks (with the knowledge I have on Abaya designs and my style in general).


I've had to wear an Abaya before when I was in Saudi (I got away with going to fancy dinners in my PJs underneath). I'll be 'judging' the designs based on how well the designers captured the guest's demands and how also how it reflects the recent fashion trends.

Challenge one: create an Abaya for Emirati digital artist Sumayyah Al Suwaidi who is going to have a Ramadan Art Bazaar featuring 20 artists with many VIPs attending, so she needs to be wearing something unique with colors that aren’t ‘loud’. Sumayyah also loves vintage, so she asked if they can include an element of that into their designs as well.

The contestant's Abaya designs:

Amani

 Bana

Huda

Moza

Ola

Samah

Sara

Urooba
 Urooba's design wins it for me. I think she took into consideration Summaya's brief and executed it beautifully. If i were to wear one I'd pick this design.

No comments:

Post a Comment