Firas Zedan Unveils Zwara

A roster of 7 looks unveils the masterful vision of Zedan in his thesis collection titled, ‘Zwara.’ What’s more, the designer goes above and beyond with each look, injecting motifs from his past life and fusing it with elements from now. This ultramodern twist is bolstered by his sharp precision and ability to take ordinary silhouettes and manipulate them to highlight his narration skills. With a color palette that consists mostly of black and white, the pops of neutral-colored hues assist his vision. Each look fuses harmoniously together, offering the viewer insight into what goes on in the mind of Zedan.

office sat down with the up-and-coming designer to discuss his body of work, source of inspiration, and future designs.

What are you feeling the most excited about right now?

I think I've finally fallen in love with fashion. I know that with a lot of people when you're pursuing the dream of fashion and design, I guess people expect it to be something like, ‘I wanted to do this all my life and all that.’ Though for me it's always been about fine art, which is what I've always been passionate about. It wasn't until I finished those collections that I realized that I wanna do fashion design. Even though I've done my internships and I've done all these jobs, I didn't realize how much I loved it as a medium until I finished it two weeks ago. I finished my collection, I had the shoot and the presentations and whatnot and then I found myself thinking about what the hell I'm gonna do next. I ended up watching an absurd amount of documentaries on different designers and whatnot and I'm mostly just re-educating myself on fashion. So yeah, for me it's just finally being excited about what I want to do and having time to do it now. There are a million different things I could do and I just have to pick something and start.

What are some of the core elements for you as a designer? Why are these elements important for you to explore?

I think for me, a lot of why I fell in love with fashion is not because I love, 一 I mean, I do love these things, but it's not the reason why 一 but the elegance, the minimalism, and the luxury aspect of it, it's very glitz and glam. Though the way that I started appreciating fashion was because of the drama and the unexpected elements. I've always loved horror. I've grown up obsessed with horror movies and I want to be a director at some point. So I also love the idea of this anticipation in a horror movie where you're kind of at the edge of the seat, but you can't stop staring. This is something I wanna get more into and combine the same elements that horror does. I still like beauty so whether that be quite literal and dramatic or more in the details in terms of how something is made, and not extremely leaning into this luxury market, but more having this existential idea behind it.

So anti-perfection in a way, I feel like that's how I've always done things and I've always been hard on my designing skills until I started to appreciate that I'm not the best seamstress in the world, but that's not what I'm here to do. I bring stories to life instead of making perfect garments. I think beauty and horror are really important. I'm very inspired by posthumanism and the element of the future. I think especially with Arab designers and Palestinians, we're pushed down the route of doing extreme luxury. Which can be beautiful, but I feel like there's such a small amount of artists and designers coming from there right now that are more provocative and more future thinking.

Your thesis collection is incredible. How did you conceptualize your vision for this roster of looks and how did you go about breathing life into each piece?

So my thesis is titled ‘Zwara,’ which means family gathering. I wanted to explore my history and bring inspiration from my culture in a more contemporary way. There are amazing designers around the world who combine elements of the Arab world and Arab design, but I wanted to do it subtly. So more avant-garde and abstract rather than taking motifs from things that are relevant to my culture of putting it in. Essentially it was a way for me to connect with my culture again, especially in the last year of my time at Parsons. Going out into the world, I think with a lot of immigrants, there's a fear of losing touch with your culture and then, being whitewashed and not having those things that you grew up with that make you feel at home.

So within that, I wanted to take those little things. For example, the dog was actually like a childhood toy of mine that I gifted to my sister, and then when I moved here, she gave it to me. It's just kind of taking these small little motifs that remind me of home that might not be so literal. When I look at my collection, I see all these bits and pieces from my home and that's how I was designing the pieces. I was thinking of how, how does this fit into this world that I'm building? Because that's essentially what I want to do, I wanna build something that exists within my universe rather than existing in the current world. So it's just like, how does this fit into the narrative? How does this remind me of home and how does this relate to either me or the more general public? How can someone look at this and relate to it in a different way than how I would relate to it?

What other elements of inspiration do you sort of like to draw from other things? You live in New York where there's like a constant source of inspiration, so like what are you looking to when you're trying to find inspiration for something?

My inspiration comes from film. It also comes from what's happening in the world and draws inspiration from more primary sources. Being original is so difficult right now, especially with how everything is digitalized. I don't know how possible it is to be original at this point because there's so much of everything we're so oversaturated. So I find inspiration more through my initial research, which is more literary-based, like reading up. When I started this project, I was reading up a lot on posthumanism, diaspora art, and different fine artists' approaches to making art rather than fashion designers. That's just kind of been my approach to creating.

Recently I’ve been indulging in the idea of fashion design and understanding different designers. I've always had a good understanding of it, but never fully indulged in it. So now I've been having more of an appreciation for the simpler things in fashion rather than the way that I used to think. For example, I think about Raf Simons first collection of shirts and workwear, one of the first things he's ever made. It was so simple, but when you look at it now, especially from someone who's not within fashion, it's just thinking about how to take something so basic and redesign it in a way that makes you stand up. That's kind of how he built his career off of that line, which is bizarre.

The phrase in your lookbook reads, ‘A world existing between my current and younger self.’ Could you dive deeper into that and explain what that means?

In a way, it's like taking things from my past, but it's not a collection that exists in the past. It's also taking things from my current experience, such as the metal details on certain pieces, which contrasts our cultural standards of how we should exist in the world, especially in the middle east. So it's just taking things from the past from me now and thinking about things that I think about in the future and creating this middle ground universe that kind of has this build-up of everything. I think of that space existing as my body of work for the future as well. Everything I want to do in the future, I want to fit into this world. So it's all about world-building for me and this is only a very small step into that because after finishing this collection, I feel like it’s almost 10% of what I now feel like the next collection could be.

From what I’ve seen in the past few years, a lot of thesis collections stick to very basic designs. However, you went out of the park and created all of these bizarre silhouettes, do you naturally gravitate towards designs like these?

Well, I was like, ‘why do I want to confine myself to making a collection that is very wearable or sellable.’ If I'm still a student there is no expectation for me to create something that fits into a market. There's such an emphasis in a lot of fashion schools, like, who is your customer, etc, which is very valid, 一 the professional world 一 but just thinking of myself as a student and this catharsis of pent up creativity that I haven't been able to do anything about. I just wanted to challenge myself to kind of keep playing around with things that I've never worked with before. I didn’t wanna do anything that would be considered basic in a way, I wanted it to be abnormal.

It was a projection of a fantasy where I imagine a world where this is what people look like. I think, especially fashion designers, seeing how almost disposable we are in the pandemic and how fast our market just kind of disappears, and how commercial, places like New York are right now. It's just so repetitive and I just felt wrong to keep feeding into that kind of cycle of making clothes that will sell. So I just definitely wanted to push that and then from that, I can develop iterations that are more wearable and whatnot. But because I'm creating more, I was thinking about it more as specific art pieces and how they would kind of exist in more of exhibition space and interact with each other.

Where do you hope to take your designs in, in your future? And like, what can you tell us about any upcoming collections if that's even on your mind right now?

I think the next thing for me is just honing in on my craft learning, how to tailor more accurately, and refining my sewing skills so I can produce the more high-end concepts that rely less on drama and more on precision. I'm in a transitional period right now, so I'm figuring out whether I wanna stay in New York or go to London and go to CSM. Everything's up in the air, but I'm hoping that whether I stay or go over there, I'll start setting up my studio so I can start producing more stuff and working more independently. That's my goal at some point, like a lot of other designers, is to become a creative director. I wanna run my own brand and be able to tell stories that I feel are not told and think about how to structure that brand more sustainably. I’m also interested in jumping around different brands and designing and seeing how that informs my aesthetic.

I think it's such a big thing working in fashion, I mean, I only know working in New York, but in every brand, I've worked for I'm the only Arab there, especially Palestinian, there's such an emphasis on diversity in fashion. But more on the surface level, not when you go into their actual offices and their design studios and you see who actually works and it's so far away from being diverse. That's just the reality of the industry that people, I guess still refuse to accept, but yeah, so definitely wanting to, with my brand, be able to create a space, that's more inclusive like that. I want to grant the opportunity for people from whatever background to be able to create and experiment with what fashion could be rather than what it is now.

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After 30 years and over 100 cult fragrances, COMME DES GARÇONS PARFUMS 1994–2025 BY SIMONETT & BAER launches this month

December 17, 2024

“I have to add that the topic is, of course, an irrational one, because it's not art and it's not fashion. It has to do with scent, which is something in the air,” explains Dino Simonett, renowned art-book maker and designer/publisher of the new COMME des GARÇONS x SIMONETT & BAER book, which details 30 years of CDG perfumes.

“The moment you smell something is irrational,” he continues. “This book transports you and brings you to the idea behind the perfumes. People have gotten thousands of art catalogues from me, but this fucking perfume thing really drives people a little bit crazy, you know? Because everybody has this bottle; and that bottle smells like this on them; and this bottle I need; and all the memories and everything. I like it a lot that we made this.”

As fans and family of the world’s coolest brand prepared to gather at Dover Street Parfums Market in Paris to celebrate the launch of the book, our Editor-At-Large Paige Silveria shared some coffee and cigarettes with Simonett to discuss his wild trajectory, making books with Joseph Beuys and Tilda Swinton early on, and the importance of nonconformal thinking.

By Paige Silveria

This fucking perfume thing really drives people a little bit crazy.

Paige Silveria: Tell me about yourself. You make books.

Dino Simonett: My books are my art. Each book might be a painting or sculpture. And you should not do the same sculpture all the time. When you hike somewhere, you never should go the same way back home — this is something my mother taught me when I was young. In the same way, it's boring to make the same stuff all the time. So I try to find a way to invent my own language.

PS: This book you’ve made is really beautiful.

DS: It’s hyperrealistic larger-than-life images of boxes and flacons in an endless row presented on paper the thickness of a children’s book.

PS: I loved how it said in the press release that you woke up one Sunday morning and the idea for the book suddenly came to you.

DS: The backstory is that Remo Hallauer [COO of COMME des GARÇONS International] is a true book lover. We met at the Offprint book fair in Paris. And one day, shortly after peak COVID, this email came from him asking if I’d think about a possible collaboration with one of the young stars here — and no hard feelings, but it didn’t work out. So then, as it is in life, which is the essential thing, you have to have an idea. And most of the time, they’re not good enough. You have to have another and another and then you go, Ah ha! Perfume.

PS: And you’d already been pretty familiar with their fragrances?

DS: I’ve known this stuff since the beginning. I wore the first perfume they created. It was part of my life all the time, and I thought, It's so funny. There’s a connection with how I make the books: like two, three books a year, all collaborations and each is different. Just like their perfumes. So I immediately texted Remo.

PS: And what perfect timing, with the 30-year anniversary.

DS: Yes, but this was two years ago or so. I hadn’t had the jubilee in mind. It might not look like much, but there was a lot of work to do.

PS: Many of the advertisements and images weren’t archived, physically or digitally, right? You had to search all over for a good portion of the material?

DS: Well we also had to wait for the official deal to go through in the beginning. Adrian Joffe [President of COMME des GARÇONS International and Dover Street Market International] wanted to do it but he didn’t have the mind space at the time; they were about to open the Dover Street Market here in Paris. So we were on our own for a bit, developing the project from zero. We looked all over the Internet and tried to create the chronology. I had a young guy helping me. He kept reminding me to be patient and to continue to work on growing the book. The door was open, but we had to wait in front of the next room. So we took little steps to prepare ourselves. And stuff slowly worked out.

PS: And thank God for the Internet.

DS: Yes, because as you mentioned, there was no archive. We thought surely they’d have something in the basement. But no, that didn’t exist. At one point they sent us a list of all the perfumes so we had a clear checklist to manage. I had to become an expert.

PS: There are so many, over 100?

DS: Yeah, and at one point the CDG team was activated. It was like a machine and in the spring suddenly a load of stuff was coming. First we had to grow the grapes, then make the wine and then the grappa. And at the end, it's a really strong grappa. And so things came together, and then one day Adrian said, “All is fine, but Rei [Kawakubo] must now also approve it. This is how the system works.” But nobody had told me! So Remo met with Rei to show her the book.

PS: That’s a bit of pressure!

DS: She could have said no and we’d have to throw everything in the garbage, two years of work. There was indeed a little bit of pressure. But it was fine. She liked the book. Then at the end of this summer we met again and they asked if they could have some of the finished copies on 20 November in Tokyo. I said, “I’m sorry, what?” He was thinking that the book was finished, you know? I told him we still needed a lot of material to finish it. Sometimes it's nice though to have this pressure. It's motivating and thrilling when you finally accomplish it all.

PS: Let’s go back. How did your upbringing inform who you are?

DS: It has to do with nonconformal thinking. Most people think the same. And we’re constantly pressured as well, by everything around us to conform. You have to really fight to keep your head and so I had this upbringing with this rather eccentric mother who was absolutely nonconformistic in every way. She was resolute. Why should we follow the path of the masses? It was never my thing. Voilà.

PS: How were you in school?

DS: I was not so good at school. I was only skateboarding at that time. I was on the Swiss National Team. I even was here in Paris at a European championship when I was 15 at the Trocadero. And my mother said, “You are not going to school anymore. You need an apprenticeship. It makes no sense to send you to school any longer.” I was independent and had my first salary at 16.

PS: What were you doing?

DS: I was a carpenter making tables, chairs, all that stuff. All my friends went to high school with like 16-week holidays, while I had only four. And so it was really, really tough shit for a 16 year old. But I learned two important things. The first one was discipline; seven o'clock each day it started and lasted nine hours. And the second thing was precision; you have to do things right. People always said to me that the apprenticeship was good as I’d really use it for the rest of my life. And I always thought that was such bullshit. But actually, it's kind of true. And so anyways, the moment I finished my apprenticeship, the very last day of the last test, I went on the Interrail for one month and never went back to a carpenter shop.

PS: What’d you do after?

DS: I wrote a letter to this very super famous music guy, Claude Nobs who was organizing the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, telling him I’d like to work there that summer. I mentioned that I’d just finished my apprenticeship for carpentry. He phoned me back immediately after getting the letter. He said, “Oh you’re a carpenter? You can come right now.” He was renovating his apartment in Montreux. So I stayed and worked there alone while he was up at his chalet. I felt like Kevin McCallister from Home Alone in this completely furnished apartment. And then the festival started, and there was this guy from New York doing a large mural painting. It was Keith Haring. I had no idea who he was. We became friends. Then I met George Benson and Herbie Hancock. It started from nothing and then one thing comes, another thing comes, another thing comes. This is how I started, which is maybe not the natural way. But I was following my intuition and taking chances and putting myself out there.

PS: And you're going after what you have a passion for.

DS: I think that’s the best way to live one's life. It was like my own private art school. I met all the guys I was totally hot about. I met Joseph Beuys and told him I wanted to do an art project with him. I got his number and he told me to ask for his assistant. But I took everything for granted, what people said to me. So I had this phone number in Berlin. And I called the guy 20 times until this fucking meeting with Beuys finally happened. And we met and made a small collaboration art magazine called “Quer.” You just have to stick to the stuff.

PS: Wow. You don't still have one of those copies around, do you?

DS: I had one and I brought it to Remo at one of our meetings. Adrian saw it and immediately took it … I hope he gave it back to Remo. Adrian has a pile of my stuff that he wanted to see, so that’s good.

PS: Yeah, of any coffee table in the world for it to be displayed, his is probably in the top 10.

DS: So then I decided my dream was to be a film director. There was a film school in Berlin that I applied to. They only took about 18 people from 600. We waited all week to see this list on the wall for the final call back meeting. And my name wasn’t there. I was like, “Shit!” And then a week later, I received a letter saying I’d been accepted. Later the director told me it was clear enough with my application and the art magazine I’d sent that I’d be accepted. I don’t say this to brag. I say this to tell you that every young person that wants to go somewhere, all they have to do is fight. You have to get out of your house and your small town and your comfort zone and all that shit.

PS: I agree. So you’ve made films?

DS: I made a feature movie and went to the film festival. It was really amazing and everything, but I was not Tarantino, you know? So it’s the last semester and Tilda Swinton is supposed to teach a seminar. I really wanted to attend it. It would be the cherry on top of the cake. Then she postponed it once, then twice. The third time, I’m on the tube and there’s a woman in front of me with a newspaper that says that Tilda’s super mentor, Derek Jarman, had passed away. It’s the very Monday morning that her seminar is set to begin. And I thought, Oh shit. She’s not going to be there. But then she was there after all and it was a fantastic week. There were only five of us students and we all fell in love with her. And she fell in love with us. I’ve known her since.

PS: I can only imagine. How’d you make the transition into books?

DS: You have to find out what you're really good at. I had long discussions with this guru, an old guy who was a very diligent, very bright guy. I was really miserable, feeling directionless. He asked me why I wasn’t continuing with filmmaking. And I couldn't give him an answer. Then he said right into my face, “Probably it’s because you’re not good enough.” The message was one-hundred percent received. It was a relief; I'm not a bad person. This guy told me the truth, and I could accept it. And when you can do this, you can figure out what you actually want to do, what you’re actually good at. I started making books. I made one with another film director. And we visited Tilda at her hotel, bringing one to her as a present. As we’re knocking, I thought to myself, If I did another book focused on people in this business, it’d have to be her. And she opens the door, looks at the book and says, “Oh, I would like to have a book like this on me.”

PS: These situations seem unreal.

DS: I spent five years on her book, which was an enormous success. It included stills from all her films and launched it in different cities. Fantastic shit.

PS: And now you’ve just released this soon-to-be iconic CDG book.

DS: I've learned to be patient; things can take you years. This book with Adrian and Remo took two years and I didn’t even know if it was going to be approved! Follow your dreams as much as you can. It's not so important which dream it is exactly. If I see a step in front of me, I try to take each chance I get. This is what I wish for everybody, in whatever situation you find yourself, start to do something with nothing. This book started with just a simple idea. You can not find anything like this on the Internet, this compilation, this narrative. It’s something we had to bring together with enormous work. And here we are. I think in our digital, splattered times sometimes you have to make something which is real. That you can sit with and focus on in silence and really take time alone with it.