Fashion outlives mishaps & miseries

18 Dec '07

2 min read

Even though US invasion in Iraq had nearly devastated the invaluable Mesopotamian garments in the loot that followed, there's no stopping the Iraqi designers.

After more than four years, the Iraqi designers are back and ready to showcase their latest works on international platform and anywhere in the world except Baghdad.

A group of 307 designers, artists, embroiderers, dress makers and models have come together to revive the era of style that dates back 5,000 years and more.

An entire channel of process is into action starting from the artists copying images from pottery and drawings to designers incorporating them into natural fabrics, embroiderers creating the motifs, dressmakers sewing them onto dresses and models finally displaying them on the ramp.

Every motif designed represents an era that could be the Sumerian period (5000-2330 BC), the Babylonian era (2330-1750), the Assyrian epoch (1800-613) as also the present Islamic period. Besides, they are made only from natural materials available at the time like cotton, wool and silk; synthetic fibres are completely avoided.

As exotic as they sound, these works are just as priceless and are only designed to preserve the evolutionary culture of Iraq. Some of these have taken over a year to get completed and artists refuse to put them up for sale.