Revamped Dubai Fashion Week to make runway return in March

Sheikha Hend Al Qassemi will head the Dubai Fashion Week project. Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation

When Dubai Fashion Week bowed out in 2011, having launched just five years earlier, few predicted it would return.

Next March, however, it will step back into the limelight with a week of curated shows and presentations.

Spearheading the project is Sheikha Hend Al Qassemi, the editor-in-chief of Velvet magazine, and designer of her self-titled brand of contemporary evening wear and abayas.

“I approached Capital Group to bring back Dubai Fashion Week,” she says.

“I wanted to revive the pioneering industry event by breathing a fresh and international approach into it. It has been in the pipeline since the summer and House of Hend will be a permanent feature on the schedule.”

The revamped event will be held at Dubai’s Palazzo Versace twice a year – in March and October – following the big four fashion weeks, in New York, London, Milan and Paris.

Its primary aim is to showcase regional designers while encouraging global heavyweights – from the world of couture and prêt-à-porter – to exhibit alongside them. The list of participants is eagerly anticipated and will be revealed in the coming months, with home-grown talents such as Michael Cinco expected to be among them.

“We have tapped into designers who have already had an established, emotional connection with Dubai Fashion Week in the past,” says Al Qassemi. “We are currently targeting local and international designers, buyers, VIPs, celebrities and media to what will be an invitation-only event. It’s a business-to-business event that will open the door for designers to showcase to IP clients.”

Al Qassemi also has plans for an accessories exhibition space at DFW, and predicts some designers will showcase demi-couture collections.

She hopes the event will provide Dubai with an economic boost, attracting foreign visitors who will not only “see and spend” at DFW’s shows, but also take full advantage of all the city has to offer.

It is unclear why the curtain fell on Dubai Fashion Week the first time around, with some suggesting the UAE fashion sector was simply too nascent to accommodate an event of its size and scope.

“It was not that Dubai Fashion Week was unsuccessful – it was packed with designers, media and sponsors,” says Al Qassemi. “It was more that the market then did not have the appetite to continue to feed the fashion-design industry.

“Our Dubai Fashion Week will encompass a broader range of attendees from across the Middle East, with the goal of having them in long-term attendance.”

Dubai Fashion Week will sit alongside established events including Fashion Forward and Arab Fashion Week. There will be no jockeying for position, says Al Qassemi, and a warm Emirati marhaba will set the event apart.

“There is room in the market for everyone, but we will be occupying a different space,” she says. “Dubai exudes luxury, and we will execute Dubai Fashion Week at the highest level.

“As locals with purchasing power are the roots of this country, why are they not invited? Having attended other fashion events here, the one thing that was substantially missing was the Arab hospitality.

“I will curate an event of stature that speaks to the taste of the market and invite real fashion consumers.”