An Iraqi fashion designer who highlights the attractiveness of women with Arabic calligraphy

Ethnic designer, Hana Sadiq, adds a modern oriental touch that highlights the attractiveness of Arab women, as Arabic calligraphy dominates her embroidered designs.

And she does this, either through verses from love poems or simply in colorful letters scattered in bright colors, according to «AFP».

In her studio inside her home in the center of Amman, the Iraqi-born fashion designer, who has presented her fashion shows in about 37 countries, sits amidst a huge amount of traditional Arab costumes and ancient silver ornaments that show her adherence to the culture and traditions of her homeland.

The Arabic calligraphy stands out in its designs, from the “Kufic”, “Diwani”, “Raqqa” or “the third” calligraphy.

Calligraphy
Her clothes are also adorned with verses from the love poems of the most famous Arab poets, Kenzar Qabbani, Mahmoud Darwish, Badr Shaker al-Sayyab, Muzaffar al-Nawab, and Fadwa Toukan.

Hana (72 years old) holds a degree in French literature from the University of Baghdad and studied plastic art there, textile design and painting on silk and ceramics in Paris, and the Arabic letter has been used in modern fashion for 25 years, and Hana says that “Arabic calligraphy is the most beautiful.”

The long-haired septuagenarian, who put jewelry around her neck and rings bearing precious stones, explains that she “used it in about 30 ways.” She adds, “Every period, I switch to a certain type of writing on clothes that I design, once by printing, and once by embroidery, and once with beads.”

She adds that she wanted to celebrate the writing that was born in the late fourth millennium BC in her country, Iraq, or what was formerly known as Mesopotamia, without which “all these civilizations would not exist.”

During her life, Hana designed many costumes for celebrities, including Queen Rania and Nour and Queen Sofia of Spain, and actresses such as Claudia Cardinale, Arab princesses and Gulf sheikhs.

In her extensive travels throughout the Arab world, she has about a ton of antique silver jewelry and about five thousand pieces of fabric, traditional Arab costumes, and her kaftans that embody the hidden magic of Arab women. It is a mixture of bright and stunning colours.

Hana Fashion
Details are scattered and letters are scattered in the fashion of Hana, who has loved this art since she was ten years old, when she used to go to the place of her grandfather, the Baghdadi textile merchant, who used to talk to merchants in Turkish, Persian and Indian.

She was also influenced by the beauty of her grandmother’s clothes, “which when she was wearing the Hashemite dress and walking among the women elegantly as if she were a peacock.”

The Hashemite dress is an Iraqi folk dress made of very thin and transparent fabric with wide sleeves and edges and decorated with beautiful floral foliage in gold or silver on a black base. It was popular with Iraqi women in the fifties and sixties of the last century, especially in central and southern Iraq.

Hana, who has lived between Paris and Amman since 1982, added, “I noticed that the Arab man likes for his wife to wear earrings and put something on her head and put on necklaces, anklets, belts, bracelets and rings that look beautiful and give her femininity.”

“It is true that Arab fashion conceals a woman’s body, but it has high femininity,” she added.

Arab women
Hana, who has written a book in three languages, Arabic, English and French, entitled “Arab Fashion and Jewelery: A Legacy Without Borders,” deals with Arab fashion from Yemen to the Maghreb, and believes that “Western clothes do not fit the body of an Arab woman.”

She adds, “Unfortunately, this is the result of globalization that came to us in the twentieth century and we have become imitating the West in all fields, in architecture, furniture, clothing and food.”

She concluded by saying, “What matters to me in all my work is for the woman to remain female and for the man to be attracted to her as a female, meaning that she does not pass in front of him without him noticing her and seeing that she is beautiful.”

Hana Sadek, right, in her playroom (archive: Internet)