The first men’s fashion week to ever be organized in the Middle East will take place this month, featuring designers from Lebanon and other countries.
The first Arab Fashion Week-Men’s, will take place in Dubai from January 28th-30th and feature the work of emerging and established menswear designers from Lebanon and other countries across the region.
The event is a part of a partnership between the Arab Fashion Council, the French Fashion Federation (FHCM) – France’s governing fashion body – and Facebook.
The partnership with the FHCM will see menswear designs by 4 emerging brands, from Paris Fashion Week Men’s, make an appearance alongside designs from the UAE, Lebanon, Iran, and Qatar.
The show will be live-streamed to Facebook and Instagram, simultaneously providing viewers and potential customers with the ability to view the collections and pre-order them directly using Instagram’s embedded shopping features.
Lebanon is home to a plethora of fashion labels, some of which rapidly expanded past its borders to become international sensations, while some have been trying to get there steadily.
However, space for upcoming designers to flourish and expand within has been constricting in the crisis-hit country, making it difficult for rising talents to develop and improve their brands.
That is not to mention that many established and emerging designers were hit hard by the Beirut explosion in August, at a time when the economic crisis was already leaving its devastating mark on their operations.
In response to this unfortunate reality, a special, shared working space was recently established in Beirut with the aim of helping struggling fashion designers navigate through their local industry’s challenges more easily.