While most people around the world just stay in the same career, what we love about Saudi is how there is a whole generation of people who have the confidence and ambition to mix things up. Take Nasiba Hafiz – she has always been creative but started out as a fashion photographer before becoming a designer.
While she’s stayed in the same industry, it’s not the most obvious shift. (It’s not like we see Mario Testino launching his own line.) Here she chats about overcoming her fears, and creating a brand that fuses Middle Eastern traditions with modernity, while ensuring that she addresses the urgent issue of sustainability.
The Saudi designer caught the fashion bug when she was young, inspired by her mother’s class and sophistication. “At the early age of nine, I realised I wanted to become a fashion designer,” she shares. Her passion for fashion first had an outlet when she worked in clothing stores during her summer breaks.
She then headed to London to Central Saint Martins College, which boasts an alumni that reads like a who’s who of the fashion world: Alexander McQueen, John Galliano, Christopher Kane, Stella McCartney and so on. While she managed to complete a foundation course at the college, she failed to make the cut onto the uber-competitive womenswear programme.
So she studied fashion photography and styling and tailor-made a ten year career for herself in this area.“Getting rejected was quite discouraging. It held me back for a good decade. When I decided to go back to fashion design, I studied at London College of Fashion, Dubai, only to realise that I really did not need to wait all this time. I had it in me all along, and this was how I started my brand in 2012.”
Almost ten years ago, Nasiba made the bold decision to take the plunge into fashion design. Since then, she has carved out a niche for herself by creating contemporary, stylish pieces. The designs are aimed at modern, open-minded women who are willing to embrace change. But she also has a wider appeal, as her designs target women coming from abroad who do not have enough choices in the Saudi fashion market.
The brand offers ready-to-wear items as well as designer abayas. “All Saudi brands at that time specialised in designing abayas,” she recalls. “My greatest inspiration is abayas, although I did not start by designing them. All of my fashion lines must have abaya designs. For me, it is the final, most beautiful cover-up piece that can work with any style.”
According to Hafiz, abayas are the crown jewel of fashion, and the common thread in all of her collections. You’ll fall in love with the Love and Heart abayas, which are so popular they are available the entire year.
One of the driving forces (and most important issues) for the brand is to design environmentally friendly clothes and minimise waste. The three core pillars that underline her work are sustainability, recycling and upcycling. For that reason, she uses extra fabrics to design new pieces or to make bags that can replace paper bags.
“Once, we used Palestinian djellabas to design one of our collections, however, rather than asking tailors for special fabric for us, we bought what they had and wanted to sell off, and repurposed it,” she explains.
Hafiz even used the ties that her late father used to collect, reworking them into new structures and pieces. With them, she launched a line of dresses and skirts.
Nasiba also collaborates with charities.She bought Palestinian djellabas from SEP Jordan. She creates Love and Heart Abayas in collaboration with Namat, an organisation that teaches village women crafts. She is proud to be part of Al Oula, the first women’s charity association in Jeddah, and launched a collection that raises money to help families and children. Nasiba: a woman of many talents, and a brand with its eyes on a sustainable future.
nasibahafiz.com.
