Designer seeks to bridge gap between bedouin, modern fashion

AMMAN — Brightly coloured clothes, beautifully laid tables and a runway cutting across the room — Amman’s glitterati showed up to view the premier of Hana Sadiq’s new fall collection at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Amman on Saturday night.

Using a mix of colours and fabrics, Jordanian designer Sadiq told The Jordan Times that her show, titled “Between Bedouin and Civilisation”, aimed to merge the beauty of the bedouin aesthetic with modernity.

“I think that in the Arab countries there is a lot of beauty and art, but nobody really concentrates on how to merge it in a modern way through fashion,” she said, adding that “you see old women wearing the traditional dresses, or people in jeans. In between, there is nothing, this is the gap I am trying to fill”.

Sadiq’s clothing is “luxury, high quality art” that merges the modern with the traditional.

The designer said she uses patchwork in her clothing “because it is very bedouin”, while her incorporation of mirrors, “because they reflect the bad spirits and vibration”, is maintaining her strong ties to Arabic culture and history.

Sadiq also incorporates Arabic poetry into the flowing cloaks and dresses she designs. 

“There is calligraphy on the clothing,” she said, “love poems from the Andalusian time, and the calligraphy then was written as birds. The birds you see on my clothing are all calligraphy. You know, in the way of Arabic calligraphy there are more than 300 or 500 letters. It’s such an art!” 

This element was not lost on the audience, with attendee Omar Al Azzam telling The Jordan Times: “She had me at poetry. The poetry on her dresses is always strong poetry from deep Arab history and I was fascinated by the works she used on her dresses tonight.” 

The event attracted ambassadors, ministers and artists, as well as the designer’s clients. 

Sadiq was pleased with the turnout.

“I am very glad to have the artists — painters, writers, poets — here tonight. I appreciate their presence because of their critique, the way they approach beauty. I like it. We don’t have fashion critics here in this country, so I appreciate the artistic critique.” 

Sadiq’s new collection differs from her previous summer collection because it includes more casual items, easy to wear during the day as well as at night, while remaining chic. 

The designer noted that this show was different, not only because of its theme of modernising bedouin beauty, but also in the sheer variety and modernity of the pieces themselves.