www.womanthismonth.com 41 December 2014 “I make my collections based on how I feel in that particular moment; it’s kind of like a mindset. For the f/w collection it was about going to those very early days of winter, with a soft breeze and the last of the autumn blooms. The fabrics are very frosty. It’s got that raw and crispy feel you get at the start of winter. I keep thinking season to season - where am I going to take my girl?” referring to the story behind the collection and the girl who gets to be dressed in the pieces. There is a real narrative involved in her collection. As put in her promotional booklet: “She escapes within her senses, she escapes into the wild. Taken by a soft breeze, whispering, calling for a storm, hurrying to gather the last blooms, beauty she wants to keep.” There’s also a geometric dimension to Amal’s collections, one that highlights contrast and reminds me of my favourite Scandinavian high street brand, Cos. “My brand is all about contrasts, mainly my colour palettes, light versus dark; you can see there are a lot of contrasts in the fluidity and structure in my clothes. It’s an aesthetic that I am carrying through my brand. There are a lot of ‘versus’ in my brand: structure versus fluidity, transparency versus texture and detail.” For a region identified as traditional, but upcoming in modern development no less, how has the Middle East responded to these
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