Dubai fashion event aims to put region’s designer

Fashion Forward does not aim to be a conventional industry event, but it is precisely though its innovation that it may help emerging Lebanese designers fulfill their greatest ambition: getting their names on the international market.

The Dubai event, which will run from April 25-28 next year, is “not a fashion week or a week of fashion,” co-organizer Ramzi Nakad is quick to point out; rather, embracing both commercial and noncommercial aspects, it is “a fashion initiative.”

Combining traditional runway shows with developmental workshops and panel discussions, the organizers are hoping FFWD “will be the biggest and most definitive fashion platform in the Middle East,” Nakad, in Beirut to meet with designers, told The Daily Star Thursday.

The event will showcase design, but simultaneously it will work to instigate conversations between emerging designers and other members of the fashion community, addressing through its noncommercial events topics such as how to start your own label or how to launch an international fashion brand.

Already the organizers have teamed up with The London School of Fashion and the Dumos Academy among others to assist with this aspect of their program.

Nakad, and his business partner Bong Guerrero, who through their marketing agency Brag manage several fashion brands, conceived of the idea for FFWD a few years ago when they began to wonder what the Middle Eastern fashion industry was missing.

The obvious absence seemed to be a fashion week, but as Nakad points, fashion weeks have been launched in many cities around the globe with varying degrees of success.

“There’s a lot of a copy-paste syndrome ... a lot of countries have taken the notion of a fashion week and invited it to their cities. And some were more successful than others,” he says, identifying Sao Paolo in the successful category, but noting there are many more in the opposite grouping.

Noting, particularly in Lebanon, the array of emerging designers making a name on the local scene, Nakad and his partner worked to develop an event that would spotlight those names in a more international context.

“[In] Lebanon you have so many talented fashion designers,” Nakad, who is himself Lebanese, says.

He continues: “Some of them have really made it outside, like Elie Saab and Rabih Keyrouz, but you also have a lot of emerging talent and it’s a shame where right now in order to make it internationally you need to make it in Paris or Milan.”

“That’s because there is no platform that would host or house the talent here, and spotlight them to the international world,” he adds.

At FFWD, Nakad anticipates that of the 20-25 participating designers, seven to 10 of them will be Lebanese; although he cannot yet disclose names.

Others will hail from Dubai, the Gulf states, Syria, Iran and Morocco, while some participants will be Arab designers currently living outside the region.

Of the emirate chosen to host the event, Nakad says it was “a bit of an obvious choice.”

“You have a lot of international events in Dubai that are getting a lot of global attention so it was a natural city to host this event for now.”

With runway shows taking place on three catwalks and between six and 10 noncommercial events planned for over the four day event, Nakad expects there to be “almost something happening on the hour every hour.”

The organizers are expecting that approximately 10,000 fashion lovers and industry representatives will visit FFWD over the four days, although Nakad points out: “It’s not a ticketed event; it’s by invitation only.”

Sponsors, buyers and media will largely comprise the crowd at the runway shows, but the noncommercial events will be more open to the public.

However, places for very interested students will for the most part allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, Nakad says, although he adds: “We’re also hoping to accommodate people that are really serious so we might be able to make some exceptions.”