The woman who once dressed her clients in lace, organza and silk, and sacrificed personal comfort to be fashionable, now prefers to wear light kaftans and billowy dresses.
In her two-storey villa in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, she has thousands of prêt-à-porter and haute couture vintage gowns collected from the early 1950s until the late 1990s. Wrapped in plastic, they hang like forgotten epithets of her youth on steel rails in her home.
The rails resemble sartorial balusters, redefining her physical exit and entry points and mentally connecting her past and present. Only five of the 10 rooms have true elements of home interior design. The remaining are hybrid versions of haberdasheries and dressing areas.
At the turn of the century, illness forced her to close her boutique - through which she sold the exquisite designs - and use her home as storage. Thousands of gowns, she estimates. She hasn't counted them.
And so the magnitude of her collection came to be understood.
The owner, a Saudi national, is 81. She is fair with dark eyes and hair. With a heart condition and very infirm, she will not be able to travel to see five to nine vintage dresses from her collection on display at The Empty Quarter Fine Art Photography gallery in Dubai this week (September 14 to October 17).
While a pale simulacrum of her youth who no longer wears the most fashionable style, she selects clothes that are always brightly hued, patterned and according to her niece, Rasha Shaath, fit her personality "to a T". In her prime, her aunt's femininity was defined by voluptuousness and her personality by equal parts precipitancy and perspicacity.
Today harsh lineaments of age etch themselves on her skin, yet her countenance of determination and intelligence remain as fresh as they did in her youth according to Rasha. She says, "My aunt is soft-spoken yet feisty. She is a force to be reckoned with."
Rasha, who also lives in Riyadh, speaks of Parveen Shaath, her paternal aunt, whose story goes beyond the fact that her family fled Gaza in the 1950s, and as the eldest, she helped raise her brothers and sisters. An emissary of social and cultural change, her aunt started a business - in fashion - at a time when it was unlikely for a single woman to make it on her own.
Fashion: The Story of a Lifetime is the title of the exhibition where, along with Parveen's vintage gowns, there will be 70 works by nine celebrated photographers who spent their lifetime experimenting with 20th century fashion.
The title encapsulates both the theme of the exhibition and rather aptly, Parveen's life.
It wasn't her plan though to talk about her collection or her personal story. Her illness had forced her to concentrate on her health for the past decade. The debilitation had also forced the fate of the gowns to be suspended on the very rails they hung from.
"It was a shame to see those dresses gathering dust," says Rasha, in a telephone interview. She along with her sisters Reem and Haya and their friend Abeer Seikaly decided to help Parveen unravel the yards of rich history of her collection - held together by each delicate stitch and tinselled button.
Last year, they moved a few vintage dresses from Parveen's villa to the sisters' home in an attempt to label and categorise, eventually deciding on a retail and art plan, operating under the name So Passe. Earlier this year, they sold two vintage evening wear collections of 40 gowns through Villa Moda in Kuwait and Bahrain, respectively.
However, they wanted more than price tags on Parveen's collection. They wanted art-oriented projects through which the vintage gowns would showcase history. Luckily, through Rasha's previous media-related collaboration, she knew Elie Domit, creative director of the Empty Quarter Fine Art Photography gallery.
Earlier this year, she asked Seikaly to meet Domit and tell him about her aunt and their attempts to bring her work to the public because apart from members of royalty and a whole generation of women in Saudi Arabia, Parveen's story is an untold one.
Together they reified the concept for the exhibition.
Rasha says, "We will be bringing the gowns personally. They will reflect the different periods that exist in the collection and show distinct elements of fashion, craftsmanship and design."
The vintage gowns will occupy only a fraction of the total works at the exhibition, yet they represent an important curatorial chapter.
Ahead of the opening, Domit says, "We wanted to feature Parveen's story. She has been involved with several iconic designer brands like Belville Sassoon that dressed high-profile clientele for more than four decades, and Nettie Vogues that supplied Princess Diana's formal engagement dress. There was a clear link between her work and the theme. The result is a museum quality exhibition that offers a rare opportunity to experience the power of fashion."
The exhibition will illustrate a larger theme of how fashion is part of history and how understanding that (history) is still relevant. While the exhibition - of fashion photography - will represent all that is beautiful, it will also allude to the evolving social landscape. In context, Parveen's gowns fit right in. More than just anachronistic visual associations, they are weaved into the fabric of this region.
Parveen used to be the kind of woman who would suffer for fashion. She says, "I never hesitated to wear corsets, constricting innerwear and anything that would make a woman's body look shapelier. Now I dress for convenience and comfort because of my weight gain [a result of her heart condition]."
She is also the kind who isn't interested in fame or talking about herself. Which probably explains why we haven't heard of her. For most of her life, she worked quietly. She opened her boutique Azizati, Arabic for ‘My Dear' in the early 1960s. It started out as a small store in Riyadh and eventually came to occupy a villa where women would socialise and shop. Towards the end of the 1990s, she shut it down.
It wasn't till Rasha propounded an idea that would help reduce her stocks that Parveen agreed to sift through the panoply of rails. The rails that transport her to her early days.
In an email interview, Parveen recalls, "I had finished my responsibility towards my 11 brothers and sisters [eight sisters]. I had also been married for a year and a half in my early twenties. So I asked myself, ‘What do I want to do with my life?' I wanted to do something that fulfils me. I used to read books and magazines and had an affinity for fashion. I toyed with the concept of a boutique and stocking it with clothes bought from foreign countries. I had heard that there is a certain time when Italy, France and England hold fashion shows."
The conception got further boost on a leisure to London. Parveen was enjoying afternoon tea at The Dorchester where designers were milling about, speaking of their designs stocked in one of the hotel suites. She was overcome with intrigue. "Despite not having an invitation, I walked into the suite. It was stocked with designer clothes, and women taking orders. I had never seen anything like it. I asked for an appointment and on a whim decided to make an order. I chose from two fashion houses. I had nothing to lose."
Parveen was informed that she would have to incur the shipping costs and that the delivery would take place two months later. During this period, she wondered if she could take this kind of transactional deals as a full-time endeavour, and began to work out profitability. The formula was going to be simple: double the price of the dress to cover cost and factor enough for a re-order.
"Initially the plan wasn't about making profit. What was exciting was that ready-to-wear was unheard of in Saudi Arabia," she says.
At the time, Beirut was a popular destination for clothes. Royal households on the other hand had their own seamstresses. Parveen saw an opportunity in this cultural framework and its conservatism, and asked her father for approval.
"By all means go," he said to her.
So she did. First to Italy where she learnt of winter collections, wandering from Rome to Milan and Florence to see shows that would run for three consecutive days.
She travelled alone.
"I was never afraid of travelling by myself. I could do anything provided it was within the boundaries I set for myself and those set by my father. It was a challenge because I'm from a conservative society having divided my childhood and youth among places like Palestine, Syria and Saudi Arabia. So you can imagine what a different world these new places were. After the first time [in Rome], I decided I would do this for the rest of my life."
Her background in sewing helped her. An autodidact, she would take clothes apart, observe the stitching and sew it back together. She used to tailor clothes for her siblings. (Later she sewed a wedding dress for one of her sisters.) She also furthered her interest in fashion through books and magazines.
As a result, she found it easy to advise elite women in Saudi Arabia.
Her first lesson hinged on the statement: do not lie to yourself. In Parveen's experience, salespeople would say, "Wow, that looks amazing" to every garment that she tried.
"I could see it wasn't true," she says, "I would tell my clients that they shouldn't be ashamed of their body shape and opt for what suits them."
She also began to educate them about ready-to-wear collections and European brands. "Part of my job was to educate women about the upcoming styles and collections. I remember how the backless dress was so popular after women got used to an evening dress in a different style!"
For four decades, Parveen continued to travel in search of evening gowns. Each season, she had a budget, sometimes she would exceed because she would fall in love with certain pieces. She would travel three times a year to Rome, London and Paris. Travelling got easier and she forged bonds with suppliers and other buyers.
"I would meet the same people year after year. There was camaraderie among buyers from all over. Back then, these [buyers] were mostly women," she says.
For the haute couture pieces, she would take prior measurements, and for prêt-à-porter collections, she would buy different sizes. She became conversant with client sizes and tastes. She says, "A particular dress would look as though it belonged to a certain client; I would order it because she would trust me [to]."
As a result, she bought dresses year after year. "At the end of each season, there would be unsold dresses; I would put these aside to focus on the newer collection. Naturally, the number of unsold dresses started increasing. Some were unpopular because the style did not appeal. Others were left because the same style was sold [in a different size] and like all women, no one wanted to be caught wearing the same dress," she says. The unsold gowns found their way to her villa.
Her father would compare Parveen's qualities to that of a camel's, which in Arabic culture, represent dependability and patience. "These were attributes I needed to take care of the family. And because of that role, my life flew by and I only realised how much time has passed after I got sick. I simply woke up one day and felt 81 years old. Thankfully, my memory is still intact which makes me feel young."
Financial independence has been a key motivator as has been her love for fashion. "I never wanted to need anybody. I wanted to work to be able to live comfortably and support myself. It was easy because fashion is a wonderful industry."
Though the exhibition will highlight the historical significance of her collection, Parveen disagrees saying her efforts hold little preponderance.
"I wasn't seeking to be known neither was I concerned about what others thought. In all honesty, I was too busy living this opportunity that God gave me - one that wasn't available to everybody. I wouldn't say that my work had an impact on the region, but there was definitely a segment of society in Riyadh that learnt how to dress from clothes I offered."
Fashion: The Story of a Lifetime
The main exhibition is like a pantheon of fashion photographers.
Elie Domit, creative director of the Empty Quarter Fine Art Photography gallery, says, "For more than four decades of fashion photography, they [photographers] wrote fashion history and shaped perceptions. They set the stage for the ever-changing Vogues [fashion magazine]; defined postures for the models; and chose the props and locations. Together these reflect the ideals of beauty and the history of fashion against a constantly changing social and cultural background.
"Each photographer is praised for his or her innovative approach since the 1940s. Lillian Bassman, for instance, didn't use any assistance or art direction on the set, and printed her own images. The fashion productions took the photographers all over the world. We were fortunate to find shoots done in places from this region."
Incredible power of clothes
Parveen speaks of the incredible power that clothes can wield.
She says, "I think any item of clothing sends a powerful message. You can walk into a room and demand attention. There are women who with their choice of clothes can make a roomful of people gasp and stare. Isn't that power?"
In Parveen's opinion, details matter. "A woman must pay attention to everything about her appearance and her clothes. For example, when it comes to details in garments, designers like Sassoon pay a lot of attention to the buttons, inside seams and threads that hold a clasp… these are haute couture details that make a difference."
She admires women who dress well. "Those who have style are intelligent... As they say in French, chapeau or hats off to them ."
Time-tested styles
Parveen believes that women are definitely more body conscious today. "Women used to be more content with their shape no matter what it was. Today, maintaining one's figure is a good thing because it makes them take better care of their health."
When she addresses the subject of style staples, she says it used to be a fur coat back when she started out in fashion. "It was a staple because it was so rare. Today an LBD [Little Black Dress] can be bought anywhere and is accessible. If you have an important piece of jewellery, it is better than any item of clothing because it will last forever and talk to any dress you choose."
Extra helpings
Did you know? The fashion photographs that will be on display at The Empty Quarter Fine Art Photography gallery have been selected based on their location: Lebanon, Morocco and Egypt.
BTW: In a separate installation, the gallery will display work by Dubai-based emerging photographer Aya Atoui, who has taken photos of Parveen on a recent visit to Syria.
Fact: Parveen would place orders at the London, Paris and Rome shows totalling to SR300,000 (Dh293,809 approx) per season.
Parveen's nieces hope to be able to support their aunt's collection with a long-term retail plan.
