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Jordan's Royal Wedding
Jordan's Royal Wedding

What will she wear? Celebrity stylists weigh in on Rajwa Al-Saif’s wedding gown 

What will she wear? Celebrity stylists weigh in on Rajwa Al-Saif’s wedding gown 
L-R: Kate Middleton in a look by Sarah Burton, Queen Rania and Rajwa Al-Saif in traditional attire and Princess Iman in Dior. (Getty Images/composite)
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Updated 31 May 2023
Hanadi Merchant-Habib
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What will she wear? Celebrity stylists weigh in on Rajwa Al-Saif’s wedding gown 

What will she wear? Celebrity stylists weigh in on Rajwa Al-Saif’s wedding gown 
Updated 31 May 2023
Hanadi Merchant-Habib
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DUBAI: With the royal wedding of the year already upon us, fashion enthusiasts in the Middle East and beyond are still speculating what bride-to-be Rajwa Al-Saif will wear at the nuptials. 

The future queen of Jordan has a less-is-more take on fashion and is often seen in minimalist looks during public appearances. 

From feminine monochrome dresses to chic A-line skirts, her glamorous yet understated style has undoubtedly piqued the interest of tabloids around the world. 

The real question is, will Al-Saif follow suit and opt for Dior like Jordan’s Princess Iman did for her wedding in March? Celebrity stylists certainly think so — and for good reason. 

Yasmine Eissa, a celebrity stylist responsible for dressing A-listers such as Jordanian actress Saba Mubarak and Lebanese Netflix star Razane Jammal, said: “Dior is a very elegant and regal brand. The royal family is famous for its minimalistic approach to fashion and isn’t showy. This is the direction that Dior usually takes for its gowns which works perfectly with their personality. 

“As a big fan of Dior and as a stylist who constantly pulls gowns from them, I definitely see why she may opt for the brand.” 

Princess Iman’s custom-made Dior wedding dress featured a modest silhouette embedded with delicate floral embroidery on the lace cuff and the gossamer veil. 

Meanwhile, Queen Rania opted for a timeless Dior Fall/Winter 2022 couture collection dress with flowy sleeves and a Victorian high collar at the March 12 wedding. 

Celebrity stylist and costume designer Mai Galal said: “As one of the oldest fashion design houses, their designs are always graceful. Dior is always associated with elegance, and that’s why I think the royal family will go with the maison.” 

Galal added that if not Dior, there was a strong chance Al-Saif may turn to Bruce Oldfield, one of the late Princess Diana’s favorite British designers in the 1980s. 




Princess Diana in a gown designed by Bruce Oldfield on Nov. 18, 1991. (Getty Images)

“Bruce Oldfield is known for dressing royal families, which is why it would be a suitable pick for Rajwa Al-Saif,” she said. 

Queen Rania wore an opulent Oldfield creation for her wedding in 1993, which featured an embroidered cropped bolero layered over a full-skirted gown. Princess Iman used the same wedding belt from 30 years ago to cinch the Reema Dahbour dress she wore at her henna party. 




Then-Princess Rania wore an opulent Oldfield creation for her wedding in 1993. (AFP)

Given Oldfield’s existing association with the Jordanian royal family, it would not be a surprise if Al-Saif chose him. 

More recently, the designer was behind British Queen Consort Camilla’s rich coronation outfit. 

Eissa noted that other frontrunners could be Arab designers such as Elie Saab and Zuhair Murad, or even Alexander McQueen’s creative director Sarah Burton who recently designed Princess of Wales Kate Middleton’s coronation outfit and the British royal’s wedding gown in 2011.   




Alexander McQueen’s creative director Sarah Burton  designed Kate Middleton’s wedding gown in 2011.  (AFP)

 

Topics: Jordan's Royal Wedding Rajwa Al-Saif

Stunning Seville: The Andalusian capital will delight culture vultures and beauty seekers alike 

Stunning Seville: The Andalusian capital will delight culture vultures and beauty seekers alike 
Updated 20 sec ago
Rawaa Talass
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Stunning Seville: The Andalusian capital will delight culture vultures and beauty seekers alike 

Stunning Seville: The Andalusian capital will delight culture vultures and beauty seekers alike 
Updated 20 sec ago
Rawaa Talass

SEVILLE: The southern Spanish city of Seville is, as its various nicknames — ‘The Pearl of Andalusia,’ ‘The Frying Pan of Europe’ and ‘The City of Oranges’ — renowned for its cuisine and its beauty. Films and TV shows including “Lawrence of Arabia,” “Kingdom of Heaven” and “Game of Thrones” have been shot here. But wandering the Andalusian capital’s ancient streets, you quickly realize just how much of a historical powerhouse it is when it came to politics, knowledge, commerce, and culture, too. 

For instance, it is believed that the passionate dance of flamenco and the staple cuisine of bite-size tapas were developed here. In the close-by port city of Huelva, the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus (known in Spain, where he died in 1506, as Cristobal Colon) famously set sail to the ‘New World’ of the Americas in 1492 — under the sponsorship of Spanish royalty — changing the course of history. There are clear Middle Eastern influences here too, in both the architecture and the language. The city’s Spanish name — Sevilla — is based on the way the ruling Arabs pronounced the name of the land in their control: Ishbiliyya. In Seville, prosperous, centuries-long Arab rule lasted until 1248, when Christian forces recaptured it in a campaign known as the ‘Reconquista.’  

Plaza de Espana Seville. (Shutterstock)

Seville is a city that will delight history buffs and curious roamers alike. Take the time to explore its narrow paths, tiled walls, quaint shops, and majestic interiors.  

We are staying at the centrally-located Hotel Vincci Molviedro, situated in a peaceful square just a 10-minute walk away from the two most-visited attractions the city has to offer: the Alcazar and the cathedral. Inside the hotel, near reception, there is a fascinating view of an ancient, 22-meter stretch of a centuries-old Arab-built defensive wall.  

The nearby Castelar road leads to a bustling web of streets where tapas bars, cafes, and speciality shops (and, of course, souvenir sellers) sit side-by-side. It’s a fun place to explore on your way to the Real Alcazar, a World Heritage Site that is still used by the Spanish royal family today. This ancient palace boasts airy courtyards, carved ceilings, calligraphy-covered walls, and sophisticated apartments that reveal an evolution in style from Moorish to Renaissance. It can be a tricky venue to navigate, but make sure to see its main highlight, the intricate, golden-dome-topped Hall of Ambassadors.  

Seville is home to the world’s largest gothic cathedral — its vast interior can be overwhelming at first, with its high golden altar and detailed chapels. (Shutterstock)

Seville is home to the world’s largest gothic cathedral — its vast interior can be overwhelming at first, with its high golden altar and detailed chapels. But, if there’s a point of historical interest that you shouldn’t miss it’s the grand tomb of Columbus, whose remains were transported from Cuba to Seville in 1902.   

The cathedral is paired with the iconic La Giralda tower, which used to operate as a minaret for the mosque that was formerly sited here. You are allowed up its 34 flights of ramps, but the bell-covered top will likely be congested and your view blocked by tourists and metal bars. For far superior 360-degree views of the city, head to Las Setas  — the mushrooms —at the Plaza de la Encarnacion. Billed as the world’s largest wooden structure, it stands around 26 meters high and houses a theater, a market, a museum, restaurants, and a rooftop terrace with views of the old city. 

If you want to simply sit back, relax, and do some people-watching, head to the colorful, tile-studded benches of the vast Plaza de Espana. Inside its semi-circle are bridges, balustrades and numerous ceramic murals portraying scenes from Spanish history. 

After all that sight-seeing, you’ll need a bite to eat. Near the cathedral, there’s a popular casual eatery called La Paella. Most customers opt for the eponymous rice dish, but if you want to try something different, go for the arroz negro — rice infused with squid ink — and add a few dollops of garlicky alioli sauce for a kick in taste.  

Elsewhere, lively Guichot street near the charming Plaza Nueva also has several dining options. We recommend El Atun, which specializes in tuna dishes.  

If you really want to treat yourself, then a meal on the terrace of Mariatrifulca restaurant on the Triana Bridge is a wonderful way to take in the breathtaking scenery of the Guadalquivir River (another name based on an Arabic term: Wadi Al-Kabir or ‘the great river’) — the beating heart of Seville which brought prosperity to the area and its people over centuries.   

Topics: Seville

Lebanese group Mayyas perform as guests on ‘America’s Got Talent’ 

Lebanese group Mayyas perform as guests on ‘America’s Got Talent’ 
Updated 46 min 6 sec ago
Arab News
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Lebanese group Mayyas perform as guests on ‘America’s Got Talent’ 

Lebanese group Mayyas perform as guests on ‘America’s Got Talent’ 
Updated 46 min 6 sec ago
Arab News

DUBAI: Lebanese dance group Mayyas are back on the “America’s Got Talent” stage.  

The dancers, who won the 17th season of the talent show, presented a breathtaking performance on Wednesday during season 18’s finale. 

The crew – led by founder and choreographer Nadim Cherfan – wore maroon Arabian-style sets with gold chain face accessories as they danced to Arab tunes.  

The show was a live performance of the group’s music video “Horra,” which was released in July.   

In an interview with Lebanese channel LBC, Cherfan said that the group has been preparing for their “America’s Got Talent” performance for a month.  

The finale also featured performances by Hollywood stars including pop star Jason Derulo, award-winning songwriter Diane Warren, multi-platinum-selling band Thirty Seconds to Mars, musician Jon Batiste and chef and TV personality Cat Cora. 

The winner of the 18th season are trainer Adrian Stoica and his dog Hurricane, earning them a $1 million prize and a headlining show in Las Vegas.  

Topics: Mayyas America’s Got Talent

Founder of Saudi luxury jewelry, watches platform CLÉ talks brick-and-mortar opening

Founder of Saudi luxury jewelry, watches platform CLÉ talks brick-and-mortar opening
Updated 27 September 2023
Hams Saleh
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Founder of Saudi luxury jewelry, watches platform CLÉ talks brick-and-mortar opening

Founder of Saudi luxury jewelry, watches platform CLÉ talks brick-and-mortar opening
Updated 27 September 2023
Hams Saleh

DUBAI: Saudi entrepreneur Yasmine Alshathry is opening the first brick-and-mortar store for her e-commerce platform CLÉ – dedicated to fine jewelry and watches – in VIA Riyadh on Oct. 7.  

Alshathry, who launched her platform in 2013, took a trip down memory lane with Arab News, looking back at how she started CLÉ and what she is doing to grow the brand.  

“The journey began long before 2013, back when I was in middle school where frankly I was fortunate to be surrounded by people of taste and culture who wore beautiful mechanical watches,” she recalled.  

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A post shared by CLÉ - كلي (@werecle)

“Of course, at the time I had zero knowledge or clue what watches were about, but I enjoyed the aesthetics and design and that was the initial hook,” she said.   

Alshathry then started having conversations with her father about the pieces he owned. “As any 14-year-old, when you share a common interest with your role model – your parents – nothing can beat that feeling,” she said. 

When she moved to London in 2011, she started to immerse herself in the industry by visiting modern and vintage boutiques. “It was in 2013, when I wanted to truly mimic the feeling I received from everyone I met in these stores to GCC collectors and equally support them in their endeavors to acquire the pieces they were after.”  

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A post shared by CLÉ - كلي (@werecle)

That was when she took the decision to launch CLÉ Concierge, a bespoke service that aimed to bridge the gap between watch collectors and brands. 

In 2019, the founder decided to scale CLÉ Concierge to serve a wider purpose focused on growing and evolving the luxury market from a traditional retail model to an innovative platform built on localization, brand storytelling and a luxury customer service experience. 

Her decision to launch a physical store came after the COVID-19 pandemic hit. She noticed an unexpected shift in consumer behavior as people wanted to go back to physical experiences and human interactions, she said. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A post shared by CLÉ - كلي (@werecle)

“The Saudi customer has a very peculiar purchase behavior and although he or she is very tech-savvy, there will always be hesitation when it comes to buying jewelry or watches online and they need a sense of reinforcement and we believe the store will provide that feeling,” Alshathry said.  

“Our aim is to deliver a rewarding experience to our clients every time they engage with us and because we offer an exclusive service and product range that very few people appreciate and know about,” she said. “Our aim is to grow this pool of audience and expand it, and to do so, we need to continuously educate the market, build rapport and relationships and to do that we need to be visible, present and accessible to clients.”  

The entrepreneur said that VIA Riyadh’s team reached out to her because “they truly appreciated what CLÉ has to offer.”   

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A post shared by CLÉ - كلي (@werecle)

“VIA Riyadh is a luxurious development with a local essence that embodies everything we believe in at CLÉ, bringing in exclusive retail and hospitality brands means we all service and target a niche audience, centered around offering a high caliber customer experience,” she said. 

The launch event will take place on Oct. 7.  

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A post shared by CLÉ - كلي (@werecle)

“Because we don’t do mainstream at CLÉ definitely expect for the launch event to be daring, different and bold,” the founder said. “All I can say is that there will be a lot of engaging activities and guests won’t be bored.” 

The founder said that she is working on growing a wider presence for CLÉ.  “We are definitely looking to open new stores but with different concepts. I don’t believe that our stores will be the same across Saudi Arabia or the Gulf, we will always add something new and fresh into any concept we bring forward,” she said.  

Topics: CLE Yasmine Alshathry

Designers look back at Saudi 100 Brands showcase in Milan 

Designers look back at Saudi 100 Brands showcase in Milan 
Updated 27 September 2023
Hams Saleh
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Designers look back at Saudi 100 Brands showcase in Milan 

Designers look back at Saudi 100 Brands showcase in Milan 
Updated 27 September 2023
Hams Saleh

DUBAI: Forty designers from the Kingdom this week showcased their latest designs in Milan with the Saudi 100 Brands initiative during White Milano, the international apparel and accessories trade show that famously takes place alongside Milan Fashion Week.  

The event, which ran from Sept. 22-25, is part of White Milano’s EXPOWHITE program.  

Among the 40 brands was RBA NEW YORK, founded by Saudi designer Rakhaa Bin Ahmed. In an interview with Arab News, the founder looked back at her experience in Italy and said that she got “great responses” from the international audience. 

“They loved the urbanized twist in my designs, largely due to their reflection of the Saudi heritage and the strong story behind my creations,” she explained. “I was pleased to hear from the audience who came from different backgrounds, saying they would definitely wear my designs for different occasions due to their versatility.” 

Bin Ahmed’s brand is famous for its textured linen sets. She also offers shirts, cardigans and traditional Saudi attire – with a modern twist – for men and women. 

The designer said that the Saudi Fashion Commission’s Saudi 100 Brands’ initiative is helping support the local designers in showcasing their work internationally. “I would call it a talent traveler as it takes us internationally with the highest standards to different countries around the world with great ease,” she said.  

The event also presented designs from Saudi streetwear label Sign Spot, founded by Nada Alotaibi. 

“It’s an exceptional opportunity and occasion for us Saudis to display our culture to the rest of the globe while also showcasing Saudi designers on an international scale,” the designer told Arab News.  

She said visitors in Milan were “impressed” by her collection. “They were also impressed by our concept of Sign Spot, which is how we convey messages through our designs. They were thrilled with our offerings and our focus on the details,” she added.  

Alotaibi, whose brand features shirts, t-shirts, shorts, pants, leggings, socks, caps and cardholders, said the Milan showcase acted as a confidence booster. 

Topics: Saudi 100 Brands Milan Fashion Week EXPOWHITE

Gareth Edwards returns to big screen with original sci-fi epic ‘The Creator’

Gareth Edwards returns to big screen with original sci-fi epic ‘The Creator’
Updated 27 September 2023
Shyama Krishna Kumar
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Gareth Edwards returns to big screen with original sci-fi epic ‘The Creator’

Gareth Edwards returns to big screen with original sci-fi epic ‘The Creator’
Updated 27 September 2023
Shyama Krishna Kumar

DUBAI: British filmmaker Gareth Edwards began his career by jumping into the world of visual effects, persuading production houses such as the BBC to let him do their special effects for free in exchange for him directing an episode or two of their shows.

While all that may seem a lifetime ago for the 48-year-old director – having since led blockbuster movies such as “Godzilla” (2014) and “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” (2016) – the experience helped him chart a unique path in Hollywood filmmaking.

For his latest original sci-fi theatrical, “The Creator” – hitting theaters in the Middle East on Sept. 28 – Edwards and his team traveled more than 10,000 miles to 80 different locations spread throughout Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal, Japan, Indonesia, the UK (at Pinewood Studios near London), and the US (in Los Angeles).

Rather than designing the film upfront, they took the unconventional approach of shooting scenes first without sets, leaving the production design work until after it wrapped, during postproduction.

Edwards used the so-called reverse engineering method on his first film, “Monsters,” which he found to be a much more efficient process.

He told Arab News: “Being able to shoot organically was much easier knowing there was a powerhouse visual effects company behind the film. Industrial Light and Magic went out on a limb to help the realism of the film, allowing us to film actors without motion capture suits, or have tracking markers on location everywhere.

“But to prove that we could make a large-scale sci-fi film on a small budget with minimal green screen, we went on a location scout and filmed a short film. I put a 1970s cinema lens on a little digital camera. We went to Nepal and Japan and everywhere.

“And then we gave ILM this footage of like monks going into temples in Angkor Wat (Cambodia). And we’re like, ‘okay, make that a robot.’ I didn’t take any tracking markers. I didn’t put any dots on their faces. I didn’t measure anything. And they did it. And they did it in a few days. It went really successfully, and it cost very little,” Edwards said.

In “The Creator,” Joshua (John David Washington), a hardened ex-special forces agent grieving the disappearance of his wife (Gemma Chan), is recruited to hunt down and kill the Creator, an elusive architect of advanced artificial intelligence who has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to end the war – and mankind itself.

Joshua and his team of elite operatives journey across enemy lines, into the dark heart of AI-occupied territory, only to discover the world-ending weapon he has been instructed to destroy is an AI in the form of a young child (Madeleine Yuna Voyles).

Most of the movie is set in the world of New Asia – an amalgamation of Southeast Asian countries. And Edwards gives a nod to Star Wars creator George Lucas for the inspiration behind the setting.

“The thing he got right about science fiction was that it’s not just about the future, it’s also about the past.

“He would take stories and ideas and concepts of spirituality, religion, mythology, stuff from a 1,000 years ago, and combine it with the far future of spaceships and robots. And then it would feel important because it was really about all that spiritual past.

“And I think when you look around the world for places that are like that, for me, Southeast Asia is that combination. You go to the cities in the capitals of these countries, and it feels like something from ‘Blade Runner.’

“But then you look down an alleyway, and you go around the corner, and there’s a temple, and a Buddhist monk, or something. And there’s this really ancient tradition combined with that, that I felt was really exciting,” he added.

For Edwards, who took seven years to return to the big screen after “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” “The Creator” is his chance to tell an original story in a way that spoke to his childhood experience of going to the cinema.

He said: “When I was young, every single movie every week, was a brand-new original film. And now this is such a rare thing.

“‘The Creator’ is really a love letter to the movies that I grew up with, you know, the science fiction and fantasy films that I wanted to kind of bring back to the younger audience today,” Edwards added.

Topics: The Creator Gareth Edwards John David Washington Gemma Chan

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