Morocco, a country that serves as a source of inspiration for many French designers, also has its own fashion week. The second edition of Maroc Fashion Week took place in Marrakech on March 10th and 11th, 2023. The event offered a platform for 17 designers and aims to make Arabic creations known beyond the country’s borders.
The meeting started on M Avenue, a newly built pedestrian mall lined with fashion boutiques outside the medina, just a few steps from expensive hotels. The prêt-à-porter shows were shown on Friday in the brand new culture building Meydene. New venues for an evolving Maroc Fashion Week organized by the Oriental Fashion Show.
The Paris-based organization is best known to French fashion designers for the fashion shows it has planned several times in the capital. With 18 years of experience, Oriental Fashion Show is now the official organizer of Maroc Fashion Week. Its chair, Hind Joudar, confirmed to FashionUnited that she has registered the name ‘Maroc Fashion Week’ with the French patent office INPI (Institut National de la Propriété Industrielle).
A variety of creations related to Modest Fashion
Among the designers presenting their collections, a large number of them showed modest fashion, popular with Muslim customers for its covering cuts. These creations were also combined with hijabs, i.e. headscarves. This is not only an important target group in Morocco, because the number of Muslims worldwide is estimated at 2 billion people today. It’s also quite young: 70 percent of them are under the age of 40, and Generation Z and Millennials make up half of them, according to figures from the Mastercard Global Muslim Travel Index 2022.
The range of kaftans and abayas was as diverse as the origins of their designers. Moroccan creatives, but also Palestinian, French, Lebanese and Kazakh ones showed their collections in Marrakech. The catwalk featured established designers such as Bernard Jabbour from Lebanon and young graduates taking part in a competition for young talent. Donia Shehadeh was chosen as the winner. She designs satin evening dresses with unusual seams and sensual necklines. She gets the opportunity to show her creations in France at the Paris Fashion Week and as part of the Oriental Fashion Show.
Donia Shehadeh studied fashion at the Accademia Di Moda, located in Nazareth. The school was founded by Saher Okal, winner of Project Runway Middle East Season 2. “I was in Italy to study fashion and it was very difficult for me. I had received a scholarship to study fashion in Italy and when I started studying fashion I thought to myself, ‘I have to help all the new talent in my country,'” says the designer. “For this reason I decided to open a fashion academy in Palestine. Not everyone can afford to travel to other countries to learn fashion, so I thought I had to help people in my country learn design locally, in our own homes.”
On March 11, Omri Elayan, another Palestinian designer, sent his collection down the runway under the chandeliers of the magnificent hall of the Royal Mansour, a historic luxury hotel in Marrakech. According to the press release, the fashion designer from the Shfaram region in Galilee is considered the “first men’s fashion designer in Palestine”. His collection consisted of dark suits with sequin embroidery, feathers and sheer materials and included both women’s and men’s clothing.
Another name to remember is Zineb Hazim. The designer with Moroccan roots and Italian citizenship wowed the audience at Meydene with the dazzling creativity of her modest fashion. Her collection, titled Abaya Street Couture, consisted of covering garments trimmed with gold or light blue sequins. The play of materials and the imposing volumes sometimes revealed the stomach or legs, proving that modest fashion can be suitable for all women.
The project of a consortium of Arab fashion weeks
Now biannual, Maroc Fashion Week has enjoyed some nice creative momentum and looks set to be on the right track. Hind Joudar announced a major future project, a consortium of Arab fashion weeks.
“With Maroc Fashion Week, Kazakhstan Fashion Week, Azerbaijan Fashion Week and Tajikistan Fashion Week, we are building a project that will be called ‘Fashion Industry’. All the talents from these different regions will be involved in a partnership for the exchange of designers,” says Hind Joudar.
“We have been working in our association, Oriental Fashion Show label, for 18 years and thanks to this association we were able to help in the development of Azerbaijan Fashion Week and Kazakhstan Fashion Week,” said the President said to be “like a kind of Erasmus for fashion”. Maroc Fashion Week will send Moroccan designers to other capitals of the Arab world, such as Kuwait, and will also continue to welcome foreign designers from elsewhere. “It’s a synergy between young talents. There’s a new generation that sees fashion differently, not in the big institutional houses like it used to,” she added. Young people want to be free, but we have to accompany them. This fashion week will also be a platform for them to be visible.”
Julia Garel traveled to Marrakech at the invitation of the Oriental Fashion Show.
This article was published on FashionUnited.fr. Translation and editing: Barbara Russ