Palestinian Fashion Designers 🎯
and honoring small milestones
Thank you so much to everyone who donated and/or shared my family’s fundraiser. I can’t believe we reached $1000! This outpour means so much to me and my loved ones. The goal feels daunting at times and I get overwhelmed with the work that needs to be done but your generosity helps me to continue in my efforts to fight for my family’s survival. It wouldn’t be possible without you.
Thank you for sharing a little piece of your digital space, your hard earned resources, and your empathetic heart. Your support has brought me to tears and I’m truly grateful. I‘ll share updates as we reach new benchmarks together.
I haven’t been in a celebratory mood given the state of the world, but I was recently reminded that I need to honor the milestones along the way because no one will cheer me on through this, no one will witness what goes on behind the scenes. So I also wanted to recognize the fact that I’ve reached 100 subscribers.
I haven’t been active on social media for years so I was hesitant to start sharing publicly again. This might be a small achievement but it’s a meaningful one nonetheless. All one hundred of you found this small corner of the internet and chose to stay in touch. Thank you for signing up and reading my humble attempts at writing. I have much more to share and hope to make it worthwhile.
My posts will always remain without a paywall but if you’ve been enjoying what I’ve shared so far, please consider contributing to the fund if you haven’t already. Every drop in the bucket is crucial. If every subscriber contributed $5 I could reach my next goalpost. Regardless, I hope you know your time, attention, and words of encouragement have genuinely touched me. Thank you.
I realize I haven’t written about fashion on this platform. I’m not interested in dissecting the latest trends that eventually lead to aesthetic homogenization, nor debating the game of musical chairs luxury brands are playing with the same roster of creative directors as prices surge and quality plummets.
I still have plans to write about memorial quilts, vintage resale, tatreez, shrouds, veils, and more. Yet many of the things I used to find meaning in have lost their appeal, they’ve become lackluster distractions that fail to quell my dis-ease. I’m struggling with some mental and physical symptoms this week so I don’t have capacity for the deep dive I had intended to publish today.
Dru, a dear friend I met while working at The RealReal, asked me to send them some recommendations and I thought that would be an easy entry point. Here’s a non exhaustive list of Palestinian fashion, makeup, and skincare brands.
Palestinian Fashion Designers
Honorable Mentions:
Hushidar Mortezaie: Iranian-American designer who created the vintage keffiyeh dress seen on Bella Hadid at Cannes.
Gmbh: Benjamin Huseby (Pakistani-Norwegian) and Serhat Isik (Turkish-German) featured the keffiyeh in their F/W 2024 menswear collection. As they closed out Paris Fashion Week, they addressed the war on Gaza in a speech they read before their show ‘Untitled Nations’.
Salvatore Vignola’s collab with Trashy Clothing for their F/W 2024 collection ‘You Must Live’ which was a fundraiser for Palestine Red Crescent Society.
Palestinian Beauty Brands
Simi Haze (makeup)
The Dirty Lamb (skincare)
Toulane (skincare)
Honorable Mentions:
Hindash (makeup): a Jordanian artist who has featured Palestinian models on his youtube channel and brand campaigns.
Danya Issawi (writer): a Palestinian fashion & beauty writer who interviewed the twins Simi & Haze at Harvard. She just started a newsletter.
Lush’s Watermelon Soap: 100% of the profits will be donated to mental health and trauma support for children in Gaza and the West Bank.
Raffles
If you need more budget friendly options, consider these raffles and feel free to share any you’ve come across:
What a visually gorgeous post Leila. Thank you for introducing us to such talented artists!