Qatar has much more to offer than just site seeing in between football matches this winter during the World Cup. Besides the beautiful shores, impeccable dunes, and state-of-the-art sky rises, Qatar has a plethora of luxury brands to choose from for fashion enthusiasts to scour some of the best local souvenirs available.
As one of the biggest consumers and market hubs in the world for luxury fashion in the Middle East, people come from far and beyond to experience a shopping experience unlike anything offered in other parts of the globe. With extremely high expectations and a top-notch shopping reputation, the country is home to many ready-to-wear and haute couture labels.
Top Qatari home-grown fashion brands to keep an eye on this World Cup:
Yasmin Mansour
Think bold exaggerated cuts, with over-dramatic composition and a brilliant play on material complexity to create depth, uniqueness, and character through clothing, is the perfect way to describe Qatari home-grown fashion brand, Yasmin Mansour.
Yasmin Mansour is a pioneer for putting Middle Eastern, specifically Qatari, fashion on an international pedestal by being one of the first luxury womenswear labels to garner one of the largest followings for fashion inspired by Arab culture and traditional women’s clothing.
Founder and creative director Yasmin Mansour is a Qatari designer who established the brand in 2014, with a vision to empower women with her unique and one-of-a-kind designs that are bold, experimental, and sustainable. Her designs have been seen on regional stars like Raya Abirached, Tara Emad, and Rawdah at Fashion Trust Arabia for Qatar Creates.
Definitely, a Qatari home-grown fashion brand favourite, be sure to keep an eye on Yasmin Mansour to discover her unique form of Arab and regional fashion representation.
Harlienz
Now if there is one designer pushing the limits of redefining the Abaya for the modern and eclectic Arab woman then Harlienz should be the first designer to come to mind. Harlienz is a contemporary Qatari home-grown fashion brand founded by designer Haya Al Adsani in 2013. The birth of Harlienz came from Adani’s vision to utilize apparel as a visual outlet and diary of her travel inspirations while taking inspiration from her roots and making her designs accessible to an international market to try modern Arab wear.
Adsani creates minimalistic, versatile, and must-have essentials in the form of abayas and jalabiyas that easily be transformed from day to night wear. What makes Harlienz stand out from any other traditional wear available is that Adsani cleverly plays with the use of bold colours, and experimental materials in the form of metallic and sheer finishings that elevates and portrays an extremely high level of refined luxury.
Her minimalistic abayas have been worn by HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser and renowned designer Diane Von Furstenberg as well as her metallic oversized blazer by mega influencer Manal Benchlikha.
Tiiya
If we would have to begin to describe the Qatari home-grown fashion brand Tiiya, only the words that would suffice are bold, opulent gowns with exaggerated shapes. Balenciaga on steroids; Tiiya is the epiphany of challenging what it means to experiment with haute couture by pushing the boundaries of wearable art in the form of clothes since its inception in 2010.
Named after its founder, Qatari designer Alanoud Alattiya is renowned for its rich use of fabrics laden with beading and one of the first fashion products with the label “Made in Qatar” as well as the first in the Arabian Gulf to ever be stocked in Harrods, London in 2008.
Ghada Albuainain
Elegant, sophisticated, and boundless to the ordinary constraints of traditional jewelry, Ghada Albuainain is a luxury fine jewelry label representing Qatari home-grown fashion labels at its finest. Founded by Ghada Rashid Al Buainain in 2015, the creative director and accessory designer’s work embodies her belief and passion for the transformative power of jewelry and showcases her distinctive perception of it.
Alongside Harlienz, the Qatari designer had been one of the first two from the country to showcase their work at New York Fashion Week in 2019. Ghada’s work draws inspiration from the beauty of everyday objects and turns them into wearable objects using unconventional shapes and metals to elevate ordinary jewelry into iconic statement pieces.
Hissa Haddad
A woman can never have enough shoes, the statement piece that completes an outfit, and the common fetish we cannot not love, Hissa Haddad is a Qatari home-grown fashion brand that pulls on the shopaholic heartstrings of every woman out there. Hissa Haddad (HH) is a luxury footwear founded by Qatari entrepreneur and designer Hissa Al Haddad in 2017.
Having launched her eponymous label during Paris Fashion Week, Haddad is the first Qatari designer to manufacture her state-of-the-art, high-quality luxury shoes in Italy. Renowned for its satin and leather heels with bold, experimental designs inspired by the rich cultural surroundings of Qatar’s architecture and historical Islamic art, Hissa Haddad is a forerunner in setting the stage for quality-made and Qatari-rooted footwear.
Ultimately, with an eventful winter ahead of us in Qatar as we wait in anticipation for the World Cup to kick off, be sure to plan your shopping list of must-buys from the best Qatari home-grown fashion brands there is.
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