MONA MOSTAFA
DESIGNER BIO
Born and raised in the United Arab Emirates, Mona Mostafa is a fashion designer with an eye for contemporary fashion and developing new silhouettes. Through exaggeration and use of unconventional materials, Mona brings to the industry garments that evoke a sense of fun and can be experienced through many senses such as touch, sight or humour.
DESIGNER STATEMENT
She has managed to find her aesthetic philosophy that translates local stories, deep-rooted cultural influences, and rituals into design craftsmanship. Mona embraces exploration by touching into Avant-Garde style that manages to defy cliché and, simultaneously, fuels the eagerness to discover and rethink the unknown. Frumpish clothing, bizarre shoulders and clashing archetypes are few of her many design characteristics. As a designer, she wants to normalise wearing out-of-the-ordinary garments for all sizes, genders and cultures. The ideas of what she creates is never limited to what the public has already seen or used to seeing.
Her current collection titled ‘Crazy Never Sleeps’ is a reflection of nostalgia within Middle Eastern homes and psychological thrillers Mona watches in those spaces. It is a signature collage of unreal, avant and eclectics, sprinkled with satire.
When this collection was created, Mona was inspired by the comfort of her grandmother’s house. The use of “ethnic blankets” as an innovation indicates the sense of belonging they offer to a handful of cultures around the globe, the Arab world amongst them. The super insulating blankets include large-scale patterns in spectrum of colours, conjure visions of thick, richly hued Persian rugs.
This season brings out bizarreness through archetypes of psychological movie characters. To translate their behaviours into her designs, Mona has distorted garment silhouettes while keeping a balance between big and small. Elements such as red stitchings can be seen that mimic blood, aggressive pagoda shoulders and “scratched” shapes convey the psychotic behaviour.
