Rami Kadi's newest collection contemplates the possibilities of restoring harmony in the world through waves of good energy.
Rami Kadi's Couture SS 2020 comes at a point in time where world events are accelerating, and where climate change is relentless is in its pace and effects. The question becomes: is it still possible to reconcile the true with the beautiful?
"The beautiful does not need embellishment, nor does it need filters. The beautiful is free-standing, and it is one and the same with reality. This is why only transparency is worthy of the beautiful. My quest is enhancing the beauty of what is real through transparency."
This is why layering plays such a pivotal role in this collection. We are made to witness as modules, units, textures, and patterns interweave in a dizzying array of elements. In Tantra, when chakras are aligned, we get to ultimate bliss, and in this vein, Couture SS 2020 is a quest for the alignment of the chakras through hues, materials, and shapes.
The designs are rife with magical stones, iridescents, and fine embroidery; the collection is a modern textural symphony that plays on light in myriads of ways. Sparkly reflections give a dreamy feel to the collection.Light and reflections of light are characters in and of themselves.
A key theme here is good energy, and this is alluded to through the Indian Mandala, which the collection features both in deconstructed form and in full. This motif provides the collection with unprecedented visual richness, and its deconstructed instances are intriguing in their visual complexity.
Colour therapy figures as well in Couture SS 2020, and naturally the colour green figures in many dresses, with its symbolism for growth, freshness, and healing. Generally, the collection makes use of pastels and neutrals, while featuring instances of vibrant colours for accent. The texture of the fabrics used is crucial in appreciating this collection, hence the sculptural quality of many dresses.
Couture SS 2020 makes use of sequins with different shapes and colours, as well as metallic laser-cut sequin sheets, crystal stones, coloured feather, tulle layers, prints on sequins, and printed 3D organza. The overall is a wild adventure of materials and feels that takes us into uncharted territories.
Worth stopping at the fact that Couture SS 2020 features the first dress made completely from recycled plastic, 100% rPET, inspired in this by similar strides taken by Scandinavian industrial firms. In so doing, Rami Kadi is once again ahead of the curve in deriving creative solutions through multi-disciplinary enquiry. Not only does this dress cash on the qualities of transparency and lightness that plastic affords, but it is also a reference to the idea of turning the bad into good, and to the idea of environmental sustainability that permeates throughout the collection. This is an experiment where fashion partakes in the circular economy and opens the way for the use of recycled plastic in high-quality applications, thus resulting in lower CO2 emissions in the long run.
Along the same line, Rami Kadi's Couture SS 2020 collection is the first in the Middle East to be done through a cyber-show, as such, its carbon footprint is much smaller than that of a physical show and will hopefully be a pioneer show for many to come in the fashion industry. Furthermore, the idea of a cyber-show is an expression of keeping abreast with technological advances, as well as the idea of universal connectivity that these advances bring.
