Arab fashion is gaining increasing global recognition by blending centuries-old craftsmanship with contemporary design and innovation. Highlighting this evolution, “Dialogues on the Heritage of Arab Fashion” brings together designers, researchers, and industry experts to explore how cultural heritage continues to shape modern Arab fashion while preserving traditional craftsmanship for future generations.
Dialogues on the Heritage of Arab Fashion
DATE: 31 May 2022
TITLE: HERITAGE STUDIES IN ARAB FASHION
SPEAKERS: Prof Reina Lewis & Dr Tanya White
Reina Lewis is an academic and public intellectual and Centenary Professor of Cultural Studies at London College of Fashion, UAL. Her books include Muslim Fashion: Contemporary Style Cultures, Rethinking Orientalism: Women, Travel and the Ottoman Harem, and Gendering Orientalism among others. Reina was consulting curator for the exhibition Contemporary Muslim Fashions and is co-editor of the accompanying catalogue with Jill D’Allesandro.
Tanya White, PhD has worked in ready-to-wear, bridal, marine canvas, and costume design in the Greater Toronto Area. Tanya recently completed a practice-based PhD at Glasgow School of Art in fashion and textile. DR AHMED MELIEBARY – Assistant Professor of Language at the University of Nottingham
DATE: 14 June 2022
TITLE: ALTERNATIVE MUSEUM OF THE SUDAN
SPEAKERS: Amado Alfadni & Najlaa El-Ageli
Amado AlFadni is an artist born in Cairo, Egypt in 1976 to Sudanese parents. His childhood environment was composed of both the Cairene street and the traditions of a Sudanese household. The relationship and the tension between these two different cultures strongly influenced his views, making him question the subject of identity with its related rhetoric and the variables of nation and ethnicity in his work.
Najlaa El-Ageli is an architect with over twenty years of experience. Passionate about the arts, she founded Noon Arts Projects in 2012, a small private art foundation, to promote contemporary Libyan art and expose it to the world stage.
DATE: 28 June 2022
TITLE: TATREEZ & TEA
SPEAKER: Wafa Ghnaim
Wafa Ghnaim is a Palestinian-American artist, researcher, writer, educator, and businesswoman who began learning Palestinian embroidery from her mother, award-winning artist Feryal Abbasi-Ghnaim.
This legacy has deeply influenced her career, becoming a leading educator in the field, the first-ever Palestinian embroidery instructor at the Smithsonian Museum, and collections specialist at the Museum of the Palestinian People in Washington, D.C. Tatreez & Tea’s mission is to educate and empower exiled Palestinians of their heritage as well as to cultivate and strengthen allyship with non-Palestinians around the world.
