Dubai Fashion Week kicks off with spirals and lacework

Zeena Zaki, Manel and Toton offer very different viewpoints on opening day

Zeena Zaki opened Dubai Fashion Week with her collection. Photo: Dubai Fashion Week

Dubai Fashion Week has returned, with three runway shows on Saturday at Dubai Design District. Officially kicking off the autumn/winter 2025 season, the six-day event is bigger and better, with Bizous, a new eatery inside the venue, and a "fit check" space, filled with neon signs for social media posting.

Kicking off the week in style, three distinct designers took the runway on day one, each bringing a unique vision to the season. Here are the highlights.

Zeena Zaki

Zeena Zaki is known for her occasion wear. Photo: Dubai Fashion Week

The opening show for the six-day event was Dubai's Zeena Zaki, who is known for her glamourous eye for occasion wear. For this new season, the designer lent a personal edge as she drew on her own experiences for inspiration.

"The show is about what I have been through," she tells The National. "Two years back, it was so challenging you know. So that's the show, it's about embracing the dark so you can reach the light, with all your faith and all the work that I have done."

This translated literally in a parade of looks that started dark – in solid black – before shifting through to paler tones such as gossamer blush and finishing with crisp white.

Zaki also configured her cuts around another inspiration, the spiral, which arrived as seams, folds and cuts that encircled the body.

"Recently, I started getting a lot of spirals in my dreams, my imagination and in the dresses – you will recognise it's all spirals. And that's about the energy. Towards the end of the show, when I released my white collection, it was about embracing all my dark at the beginning and then reaching to the light, and the spirals are related to it when you are in flow with your energy, and in sync."

Manel

A bias cut dress by Algerian designer Manel at Dubai Fashion Week. Photo: Dubai Fashion Week

Algerian designer Manel, who splits her time between her homeland and Paris, delivered a collection inspired by the City of Lights itself. Tall silhouettes were drawn from the statuesque Arc de Triomphe, while the dancing lights of the Eiffel Tower were translated into decorative embroidery and beadwork on each piece.

Describing her work as the intersection of where "fashion meets art", the collection was an ode to the historical fashion know-how of Paris that was realised as technical feats such as mixing satin with velvet or carving a bias-cut dress from silver silk – both of which require deep mastery to pull off. With fragile bead veils over the model's faces, this was a quiet collection that wore its expertise lightly.

Makeover X Toton

Toton merged traditional elements with modern sensibilities. Photo: Dubai Fashion Week

Perhaps the most intriguing show of the evening was from the Indonesian brand Toton, which merged traditional elements with modern sensibilities. This meant functional tops, light jackets and skirts made in translucent fabrics scattered with embroidered flowers, mixed with mini skirts cut from open work cloth, plus lace tops, trousers and midi asymmetric skirts.

This blend of influences also referenced the Dutch rule, which lasted a little more than 100 years from 1815 to 1920, appearing in delicate scalloped edges, fiercely boned corseting as outerwear, and perhaps most strikingly, a padded, waisted jacket. Made in pale blue lace and cut to sit proud of the hips, it felt Flemish in origin, but was most definitely modern in attitude.