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.