Sheikha Bodour Al Qasimi has posted a touching tribute to her brother, the late Sheikh Khalid Al Qasimi, on the two-year anniversary of his death.
On Instagram, Sheikha Bodour posted a black-and-white picture of Sheikh Khalid sitting on a traditional dhow, alongside the poem Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep, which is believed to have been written by American poet Mary Elizabeth Frye.
It famously begins with the lines: "Don’t stand at my grave and weep / I am not there / I do not sleep / I am a thousand winds that blow / I am the diamond glints on snow.”
The poem, which centres on the idea that people may pass away but are never really gone, also includes the lines: “Why would I be out of your life simply because I'm out of your sight? / Death, you know, it's nothing at all.”
The comment section of the post quickly filled with tributes to Sheikh Khalid, who died suddenly on July 1, 2019 at the age of 39.
“May his beautiful memory live on through you and loved ones,” wrote one Instagram user, while another posted: “A beautiful poem to honour a beautiful spirit.”
Sheikh Khalid was best known for founding fashion label Qasimi, which is now under the stewardship of his twin sister, Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi. He established the eponymous menswear label in 2008 and relaunched it in 2015 at London Fashion Week Men’s.
He was known for his cross-cultural style of flowing oversized silhouettes, often described as “urban nomad”, with signature looks including tunics, tapered trousers, military jackets and blousons.
"His identity was very much London and Sharjah: his ideas came from the cultural shift between the two places,” Sheikha Hoor told The National in a 2020 interview.
She has worked tirelessly to uphold her brother's fashion legacy. Qasimi's extraordinary spring / summer 2022 collection was inspired by the work of the fabled Syrian poet Ali Ahmad Said Esber, better known under his pseudonym Adunis.
The collection looked to Adunis's 2004 book A Time Between Ashes and Roses, offering men's looks in bold tones of raspberry, pink and mulberry, followed by jolts of marigold yellow and faded peach, along with moss green, military khaki and glacial blue.
Created in collaboration with the Irthi Contemporary Crafts Council, the collection also utilised traditional Emirati hand-weaving techniques, including safeefah (palm-frond weaving) and faroukha, a handwoven tassel.
