Three years after it began as a bi-annual event to give budding regional and established designers a respectable showcase platform, Fashion Forward Dubai (FFWD) is taking another big step towards broadening its mandate by launching Empowerment Programme through Industry Collaboration (Epic).
Established to help regional designers tackle challenges they face in setting up a viable business, the programme will include scholarships for selected designers, participation in regional and international events, workshops and sponsorship opportunities. It’s supported by the Dubai Design and Fashion Council (DDFC) and the Dubai Design District (d3), while Samsung is on board as a partner.
The Epic programme is a direct result of the Mena Design Outlook report commissioned by the DDFC and released last year, which found that the fashion sector was leading the design industry in growth, said Ramzi Nakad, the COO and co-founder of FFWD.
“The initiatives we are launching are purely focused on business development,” he said, adding that his organisation has laid out FFWD’s ‘five key initiatives’ to achieve before the end of the year. “We have the talent, but this is to make sure that they also thrive.”
Initially, the programme will be targeted at FFWD’s pool of designers as well as d3’s ‘creative partners’, designers registered with the design district.
One highlight is the chance for a designer to attend a two-month “Master’s level” course at design school Domus Academy in Milan. Applications are open starting August 23 for interested designers via the FFWD website. The name of the selected designer will be announced on October 20, on the opening day of FFWD, with the course set for January 2017.
A total of 15 designers will also be offered “showroom space” in Paris during Paris Fashion Week from September 30 to October 5, as well as at d3 from October 24 to 25. A separate group of apparel and accessory designers will be offered retail pop-up space at Galleries Lafayette Dubai from September 8 to October 23 to sell their autumn-winter collections.
A series of workshops were also announced, covering everything from how to take advantage of digital marketing and how to win over buyers, to be held through the year. And finally, FFWD will pair emerging designers with regional “influencers” who will give them exposure and help them make the right connections within the industry.
“It’s kind of a like our adopt-a-designer programme,” said Nakad.
Epic is meant to guide designers in the short term and help sort out a lot of the challenges in the regional fashion industry in the long term, said Nez Gebreel, the CEO of the DDFC.
“The UAE has been very active in the global market, especially with fashion retail. However, our market is still import-orientated, with 80 per cent of the demand in fashion satisfied through imports. Epic is designed to solve that,” she said. “We want to tackle the key barriers in manufacturing, production, marketing and skill development,” Gebreel said.
Abdo Chlala, the regional head of IT and mobile division at Samsung Mena, said his company has gone beyond just brand endorsement for this programme.
“We didn’t just sign up for this. We created Epic out of a discussion to bridge the gap of engagement and development between the two seasons of FFWD. In order to enrich the fashion eco-system, we need new designers to show their talent and ultimately help them grow. The two seasons are not enough, we needed a development programme to support budding designers and people who will make a difference to the fashion industry,” he said.
“We have technology and the scale that can help these designers to grow. And we also have our scale of retail and partnerships that can help support the awareness of these designers with the public.”
The eights season of FFWD will be held from October 20 to 23 at d3, with 31 labels signing up to showcase their spring-summer couture, ready-to-wear and accessories collections through catwalk shows and presentations. For more on the Epic programme, go to fashionforward.ae/epic
