Gigi Hadid for Prabal Gurung at New York Fashion Week in February 2018. AFP
Gigi Hadid for Prabal Gurung at New York Fashion Week in February 2018. AFP
Gigi Hadid for Prabal Gurung at New York Fashion Week in February 2018. AFP
Gigi Hadid for Prabal Gurung at New York Fashion Week in February 2018. AFP

Fashion

Twitter launches its first live fashion news series with Sayidaty

The live-streamed episodes will cover the upcoming spring/summer 2019 fashion weeks, and will premiere on September 8

Hafsa Lodi

September 06, 2018

  • English
  • Arabic

When New York Fashion Week commences later this week, Arab fashion enthusiasts on the other side of the world will get a chance to receive up-to-date coverage about spring runway trends – that is, as long as they’re on Twitter, whether logged in or logged out..

In a global first, Twitter has partnered with weekly Arabic women's magazine Sayidaty to launch #FrontRow – a live fashion news series that will run on Twitter during the international spring/summer 2019 fashion weeks taking place over the next two months.

The series, which premieres on Twitter on September 8, will be in Arabic, and hosted by prominent Arab fashion personalities Rafeea Alhajsi and Dareen Al-Yawar. Alhajsi is the world’s first Emirati runway model, and Al-Yawar is a Saudi image consultant and fashion stylist. The two will provide commentary about relevant modest looks from the runway, along with general information about new collections and trends, in live episodes that are eight to 10 ten minutes long.

Emirati model Rafeea Al Hajsi. AFP
Emirati model Rafeea Al Hajsi. AFP

“Twitter in Saudi Arabia is very important – it’s the first app we open in the morning,” says Al-Yawar. This may well be true about the region at large.

According to Kinda Ibrahim, director of media partnerships at Twitter Middle East, one in two women check Twitter multiple times a day, and since 2017, video views on Twitter have nearly doubled. “Twitter is the only platform where content and conversation can share a screen,” she says. “It’s the number-one platform for getting people excited about fashion shows.”

#FrontRow will be the third live series to launch on Twitter in Arabic, following Yalla Feed, which streamed throughout Ramadan, and Yalla Goal, which covered the recent 2018 Fifa World Cup. They reportedly roped in an average of 500,000 and 400,000 views per episode, respectively.

Nour Al Masri, regional digital director of Sayidaty, is confident that each episode #FrontRow will surpass these numbers. "There is a huge interest for this," she says.

Sponsors of #FrontRow include TRESemmé and Lux, which will help target a tailored audience segment on Twitter. The live episodes will then appear as promoted tweets from @Sayidatynet, on their timelines.

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'Worse than a prison sentence'

Marie Byrne, a counsellor who volunteers at the UAE government's mental health crisis helpline, said the ordeal the crew had been through would take time to overcome.

“It was worse than a prison sentence, where at least someone can deal with a set amount of time incarcerated," she said.

“They were living in perpetual mystery as to how their futures would pan out, and what that would be.

“Because of coronavirus, the world is very different now to the one they left, that will also have an impact.

“It will not fully register until they are on dry land. Some have not seen their young children grow up while others will have to rebuild relationships.

“It will be a challenge mentally, and to find other work to support their families as they have been out of circulation for so long. Hopefully they will get the care they need when they get home.”

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Manchester City 1 Sheffield United 0
Man City: Jesus (9')

Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?

The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.

Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.

New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.

“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.

The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.

The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.

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Daily cash awards of $1,000 dollars will sweeten the Madrasa e-learning project by tempting more pupils to an education portal to deepen their understanding of math and sciences.

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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

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“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

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Fashion