DUBAI: Libyan fashion designer Amjad Khalil brought his most personal collection yet to Dubai Fashion Week - titled “Beyond Black,” it essays his healing process after losing both his parents in 2023.
The collection, which Khalil said has been his most challenging to date, showcases the designer’s attempt to turn his “sorrows into success.”
“I was struggling and suffering and I couldn’t move on. After that, I decided to move on and to start working on this collection … it was very difficult to get back to my feet and to embrace my creativity,” Khalil explained to Arab News ahead of the runway show.
“After the blackness, always there is color,” he added.
The designer sent models down the runway in his couture creations, starting with a palette of deep black that was then, slowly, transfused with color before dazzling white gowns were paraded down the catwalk.
A beaded gold mini dress turned heads, while the designer used his initial color palette of black to show off his sleek, well-crafted silhouettes.
Khalil is also on a mission to promote Libya’s nascent fashion scene.
“Promoting Libyan fashion is important to me because it’s a way to showcase the rich culture and the creativity of the Libyan (people),” he said.
He added that fashion is a “powerful medium for storytelling and through my work I bring the unique traditions of Libya to a global audience,” referring to his showcases in Dubai and at the most recent edition of Rome Fashion Week.
Aside from casting a spotlight on Libyan creativity, Khalil is keen to dismantle one taboo in particular.
“That thing that improved me and pushed me to try to show my collections internationally … in my culture, we don’t have too (many) men fashion designers … after the revolution, after the war, I started in 2012 to try to break the taboo of the (male) fashion designer,” he explained.
He added that he is inspired by Lebanon’s fashion giants including Elie Saab and Zuhair Murad, as well as Balmain’s Olivier Rousteing and the late Roberto Cavalli.
