-: Islamic Fashion Festival

About a month ago Kanch told me that we are showing at Islamic Fashion Festival, my initial reaction was ‘oh really how interesting’ and since that day we’re both been watching fashion shows that we usually would not have thought to in order to understand the culture of the women in the Islamic world. Two words spring to mind – beautiful and elegant to describe these women.

Being intrigued on what exactly were the laws on Islamic Fashion and what it means I Google it and I found an interesting quote from the Qur'an

“And say that the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husband's fathers, their sons, their husbands' sons, their brothers or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their women, or the slaves whom their right hands possess, or male servants free of physical needs, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex; and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments. And O ye Believers! turn ye all together towards Allah, that ye may attain Bliss.

—Sura 24 (An-Nur), ayat 30-31, Qur'an[1]”

I think its incredible how women these days stick to their religious rules and are yet having so much fun at these fashion festival with all sorts of color, fabrics, shapes and cuts....this is creativity sets them free.

Usually in fashion you see boundaries being pushed with sexual references or simply not covering enough of your bits and pieces. Looking at some of the images from past IFF runway shows I've been fascinated with how much these designers can do with certain rules implemented. Keeping religion in mind, this is a different kind of challenge, making a garment look incredible covering almost 95% of the body and Kanchan Couture likes challenges so bring it on.

I've seen beautifully printed fabric and draping from designers of past IFF shows and its quite inspirational. I love how designers are forced to focus on different aspects of the garment as the length can't change but embellishments, colours, draping, layers and drama is encouraged.

We are in the process of designing and making a 10 piece collection, which has brought an excitement in the air – one afternoon Kanch and I were talking about one of the 2 pcs outfits and it great to see how we are totally on the same page of what Kanch's vision is for the collection, so stay tuned to see the beauties go down that runway!

Have a look at some of our inspiration images.