Ameera Hammouda (Questrom’18) has launched a clothes model that redefines modesty as vibrant and stylish
Ameera Hammouda (Questrom’18) carrying the Noha, a costume she designed. Hammouda is the artistic power behind the clothes model Ameera.
Vogue
Ameera Hammouda (Questrom’18) has launched a clothes model that redefines modesty as vibrant and stylish
In our sequence My Large Concept, we carry you interviews with BU alums and different members of the College group who’ve launched a enterprise, constructed a brand new product, or solved issues huge and small. We ask them how they bought the thought, what have been their greatest hindrances, and what’s subsequent for his or her huge concept.
If you happen to assume modest clothes needs to be drab and forgettable, you haven’t met Ameera Hammouda. The 26-year-old’s designs—a fuchsia silk chiffon cape that cascades to the ground, a polka-dot satin costume trimmed in black ostrich feathers—are as dramatic as any runway ensemble.
For Hammouda (Questrom’18), an Egyptian-American Muslim girl, modest clothes doesn’t need to be shapeless and boring—she prefers to put on lengthy sleeves and unfastened matches bursting with coloration and element. Her clothes model displays that philosophy: Ameera is dedicated to redefining modesty as stylish, energetic, and youthful.
Its choices—which embrace clothes, skirts, and a cape—fulfill the sartorial wants of many Muslim girls who, like her, honor their religion by overlaying uncovered pores and skin. However modest style strains like Ameera are interesting to a rising variety of girls generally. Final yr, as established manufacturers and start-ups alike started providing fashionable-yet-modest duds, the modest style trade was valued at $277 billion and is predicted to achieve $311 billion within the subsequent two years, in keeping with the 2020/21 State of the International Islamic Economic system Report.
With its candy-colored hues and luxurious materials, Ameera takes a daring stance. Hammouda, who’s had a lifelong curiosity in style design and did a stint in BU’s Vogue and Retail Affiliation, was 25 when she based her clothes model in 2021, with the assistance of crowdfunding and her personal financial savings. Now, Ameera has outgrown its humble beginnings—up to now yr and a half, the model has attracted a global buyer base and earned a stint at New York Vogue Week in September 2022. A few of her most eye-catching designs—just like the Noha, a grape-colored shift costume with waterfall sleeves—have turn into bestsellers.
Hammouda not too long ago spoke to Bostonia in regards to the lengthy highway that led to Ameera’s launch, what’s subsequent, and why she thinks modest style is (lastly) having a second.
Q&A
with Ameera Hammouda
Bostonia: How did your sense of style develop?
Hammouda: I’ve undoubtedly had a robust imaginative and prescient since childhood and have at all times been concerned with style. I used to see high-end designer items in catalogs—that I’d not be shopping for from as a nine-year-old—however I’d rework them into my very own items by chopping or BeDazzler-ing them. As I bought older, I developed a method round clear strains, good colours, and high-quality materials, and that’s undoubtedly current all through my line.
Bostonia: Who’s the Ameera lady?
Hammouda: Our lady is busy. She needs one thing straightforward; she doesn’t wish to need to layer objects or put on one thing that’s dry clear solely. She simply needs one thing that she may throw on. However that being mentioned, she needs one thing that’s nonetheless distinctive and timeless, as a result of a part of that ease will not be essentially needing to refresh your wardrobe each single season. She values issues which can be handmade, made in America, and he or she values modesty.
Bostonia: What makes a modest garment thrilling and recent?
Hammouda: I feel the impetus behind Ameera is that modest style was at all times geared towards older girls. It’s sort of drab. Boring shapes, boring colours, and dangerous materials went into the modesty bucket—and the whole lot that was good was not modest. I’d query sure items of clothes, like, why can’t this be made with a unique neckline? It might nonetheless be simply as fashionable. I assumed that we may carry these two issues collectively: you can also make good, modest clothes. A maxi costume will be very fashionable. It’s simply in regards to the cloth you choose and the best way it’s lower and the way it matches.
Bostonia: What’s your design course of?
Hammouda: Designing modest style nearly makes issues simpler, since you’re at all times going to have sure restrictions, like how the ultimate garment will look on the physique. It’s not going to cling. However then you might have room to play with the whole lot else: the materials, the colours, the shapes, the sleeves.
I begin with the design. Both I get impressed randomly and I do a fast sketch, or I would see an previous movie and assume that I’d like to see [a costume] in a modest silhouette. Design, silhouette, and cloth are the three most necessary elements of the ultimate piece. Fortunately, I discovered some superb producers who I belief.
Bostonia: The place does the model’s concentrate on sustainability come from?
The model is closely influenced by my religion, and I feel caring for the earth and sustainability are enormous pillars of Islam. It’s undoubtedly not some of the highlighted ones, both in Islam or in mainstream media, however there’s truly a saying from the Prophet that if the very last thing you are able to do in your life is plant a tree, it’s best to do it. These parts are all linked: modesty, sustainability, and philanthropy, and that’s why we plant a tree for each buy. I make it possible for our clothes and the method itself are as sustainable as potential by selecting sustainable materials and designing timeless items that gained’t be thrown away in a month. I make the whole lot in New York, so I do know I’m not going to need to fly abroad each time I must make one thing.
Bostonia: What’s arising subsequent? Any particular collections?
Ramadan is tremendous particular to me and it’s clearly an enormous deal for Muslims everywhere in the world, and this assortment is certainly one thing I’ve dreamed of for a very long time. I’m working with this very proficient Muslim artist, and we’re doing a little bit Ramadan toile de Jouy assortment. The print itself is impressed by traditions of Ramadan, with dates and prayer beads included within the print. If you go to the mosque, there’s a practice that you just put on new garments, or no matter makes you are feeling good and assured. Our foremost shoppers are Muslim girls, so I felt like it might be good if these garments may turn into heirlooms that these girls can pull out each Ramadan and possibly at some point cross right down to their youngsters or their grandkids.
Bostonia: Do you might have any recommendation for budding style designers?
Lots of people have persistence, however once they’re instructed “no” from somebody with loads of authority they could assume, okay, that’s it. However there’s at all times a manner of negotiating. I attempted all 4 years of school to get a style internship, however bought rejected. Now that I’ve a enterprise, I’ve much more persistence. Don’t surrender and simply don’t take no for a solution. If you’re instructed “no,” assume, is there one other manner to do that? Did I actually give it my all? Did I ask each single individual? Typically, should you have a look at issues with a birds-eye view, you’ll see there’s one other path to take.
Bostonia: What has been essentially the most rewarding a part of launching Ameera?
I not too long ago did a pop-up at New York Vogue Week, and we had this beautiful younger girl cease by who was very passionate in regards to the model—she used the phrase “obsessed”—and mentioned that we’re altering modest style, which I discovered so humbling. We’re nonetheless in our growing-pains section, the place we’re in search of consciousness, so the truth that somebody can, in a single yr, really feel that linked to us was tremendous rewarding. The truth that somebody may really feel that linked to the model actually made me really feel prefer it’s all been price it.
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