Morning Coffee With Fashion Designer Rami Al Ali

Diana Bell-Heather   |   07-02-2019

No stranger to Haute Couture Fashion Week, designer Rami Al Ali joins us for a morning cup of coffee.

 

Rami Al Ali interview

 

Below he discuss his ambitions for the brand and shares his take on the fashion scene in the Middle East.

 

 

Describe your morning routine.        

I’m an early bird and I like to wake up early in the morning, the first thing I do is sports. After that I have two separate offices, one for couture and one for the prêt-à-porter. I start with the couture and finish all my meetings with the production team and if there are any client appointment. After my lunch break I head to my second office in the Dubai Design District which is for my prêt-à-porter and follow up. It needs less presence from my side than couture, it’s just a more pragmatic line.

 

What can we expect from your couture collection this year?
I hope something a lot more interesting than last season. It’s a theme that I tapped into few years back, but I don’t think I reached rge full satisfaction from the result at that time, that’s why I went to the same era and theme. I developed newer techniques, something more complicated something more that speak the time of now.

 

How important are the runways and presentations in today’s industry?
Runway is still definitely the best way to translate the full vision of the designer. You have the production, the movement, the whole exact aesthetic that the designer wants to deliver to the press, the audience and the buyers. But now with the revolution of the social media and the digital world, I think that a presentation has started to be the new cool way that the audience prefers to see.

 

What do you consider your biggest career success to date?
I think being able to be the full shareholders of Rami Al Ali company without any help of any financial institution or investors.

 

What has been the biggest challenge?
Probably the same since it’s self-funded company, sometimes that effect will slow down the growth of the company since the evolution of the company happens from the profit revenue that we generate.

 

What do you still want to achieve?
Very, very long and ambitious list.

 

What’s is the motto you live by professionally?
Work today as if your last day.

 

Where do you seek inspiration?
I get inspired more by the achievement of people and the story that they tell, more than the aesthetic of certain designers or fashion houses. Probably when I start to shape up my career and start to build my own aesthetic I was inspired a lot by two fashion houses that left a beautiful mark on fashion, which is Dior and Valentino.

 

Is there someone you look up to?
I do. It helped me a lot at the beginning of my career, and still until now something I look up to, and it’s Mr Elie Saab and how he opened that door to the international scene for designers from the region and gave hope that it’s very much possible to get there.

 

What do you say ‘no’ to?
Anything that don’t help me grow.

 

If you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be?
Don’t worry, you’ll get there.

 

What would you tell yourself 10 years from now?
You’re a little bit late.

 

Complete this sentence: I’m happy when…
I make someone else happy.

 

What book are you reading at the moment?

It’s a very interesting, beautiful Arabic novel called “ثلاثية غرناطة” (Granada Trilogy).

 

How do you want the world to remember you?
As someone who didn’t just pass by, someone who left a mark.