The Kurator’s Dubai Fashion Week SS27 Round up

Count the candles on Dubai Fashion Week's cake and you won't need many. It took that name in March 2023, after growing out of Arab Fashion Week, which began in 2015. So when the Spring/Summer 2027 season opened at Dubai Design District on 22 October, the interesting question wasn't how polished it was. It was what a fashion week this young chooses to be.

Its answer, over five days, was global and a little restless. Designers came from more than a dozen countries, from Kuwait and Ukraine to Colombia and Vietnam. The city is acting as a meeting point rather than a home game.

The week opened with Kuwait's Yousef AlJasmi, whose couture debut stuck to black, cream and silver, a palette that doesn't hedge. Sara Pedram followed with The Simorgh Collection, named for a mythical bird of strength and wisdom and made in hand-painted, hand-embroidered gowns. Pedram trained as a chemical engineer before founding her label in 2015. Pallavi Puri then showed a debut of 50 looks, made by more than 150 artisans across over 21 traditional crafts, with Lisa Haydon and Cyrine Abdelnour walking. 

Ukraine's KEL' made the case for a strong concept: Genesis sent a butterfly through corsetry and architectural tailoring.

The younger sections said the most. Saturday was largely Colombian, and Adriana Capasso's TRACE found a runway idea in coffee-growing country, with sculptural silhouettes and intricate textile work. FADTALENTS marked ten years of the d3-based school FAD with more than 20 emerging designers on the runway, a pipeline in action.

Sunday brought the runway debut of Onori, the label of Emirati designer Sharifa AlHashemi, who took 1950s Sardinia as her muse. An Emirati label making its first appearance on the official calendar is the kind of arrival a home-grown platform exists for.

Beyond the shows, the week had a commercial spine: a buyers' programme and a month-long Harvey Nichols pop-up that carried the collections off the runway and into a shop.

Tarun Tahiliani ended it with The Many Moods of TT, three decades of work blending Indian craft and Arab couture sensibilities, ahead of his first Dubai store. A veteran putting down roots in a city that younger designers are still mapping made a fitting full stop.