Five Gibraltar designers to showcase collections at Malaga Fashion Week

A group of Gibraltar designers from Dorcas Fashion Academy in collaboration with the Gibraltar Fashion Collective will showcase their work on an international stage on September 26 when they take part in a catwalk show at Malaga Fashion Week.

The five designers are Charlene Figueras, Mireille Dalli, Resham Galani Khiani, Shirley Samtani and Grace Manfred.

The long-running fashion event has been on organiser Dorcas Hammond’s radar for years, but this is the first time she has decided to participate.

“It is something that I wanted to do myself but, in the end, I’ve never done it,” she said.

“But now with these talented students, I thought it’s a must. They’ve done such a great collection that I thought we have to take them there.”

Each designer will show four outfits, with the possibility of a fifth look from one of the designers. The students will appear as a group under Dorcas Fashion Academy and the Fashion Collective, alongside designers from other countries including Poland and Germany.

Models for the show will be provided by the organisers in Malaga and the group will also retain creative control over the styling of the hair and make-up.

Ms Hammond credited the high standard of recent local shows with giving them the confidence to take the step onto an international runway.

“I think that the level was so high that it was just a must to take them elsewhere, not only in Gibraltar but get them out there and see what happens,” she said.

Funding the trip has been a challenge as attempts to secure sponsorship, led by Charlene Figueras through the Fashion Collective committee and supported by Ms Hammond, were unsuccessful, forcing the group to ask participants to contribute to their own costs.

They are still seeking financial support from members of the community and businesses and would welcome any donation regardless of size. Those wishing to help can contact Ms Hammond at her academy on Governor’s Street.

CHARLENE FIGUERAS

A founding member of The Fashion Collective, which has been running for around three years since its beginnings as an experimental “denim call-out” to become a recognised cultural organisation.

Until now, designers presenting under the Fashion Collective were asked to prepare mini collections of between one and three outfits. For the Malaga fashion week event this has been expanded to four looks per designer allowing for more developed and creative pieces.

Her own collection for the show centres on a strong sustainability theme, with an emphasis on repurposed materials. The committee encouraged creators to ensure at least 50% of each collection was repurposed, with some pieces made entirely from reused fabrics.

A recurring motif in her collection is a zebra print which came from a coat she bought at the Clubhouse charity shop, from which many accessories and tops have been created. The overall palette is black, white and red, with prominent floral elements.

She said that the collection, titled The Art of Becoming, is inspired by and symbolises the growth of her daughter.

MIREILLE DALLI

A long-time participant at Dorcas Fashion Academy, Mireille Dalli has taken sewing from a hobby to the catwalk.

Ms Dalli, who has been attending classes at the academy for around six to seven years, said she was inspired by a lifetime of hearing sewing machines at home.

Her grandmother used to sew, and her neighbour was Priscilla Sacramento, so “the sound of the sewing machine” had been “engraved” in her mind from a young age.

After years focused on raising her son as a single mother, she decided to “take the plunge” and buy a sewing machine once he left to study. She joined the academy to learn the basics and technique, initially treating sewing simply as “a hobby and something to do”.

Opportunities to design for shows were often turned down in part due to lack of courage. But that changed when Charlene encouraged her.

A recent showcase, focused on sustainability and the repurposing of materials, proved a turning point and her original ideas evolved into something completely different she said.

She eventually designed three outfits, including pieces created from a bed set she had kept at home because she liked the colour.

“I just created these three marvellous pieces. To be honest, I look at them and it’s like, ‘wow, I did that’,” she said.

The showcase itself was a deeply emotional moment, particularly as her 97-year-old grandmother was in the audience.

“I was really overwhelmed at the show. I saw my granny there and seeing her face, I just couldn’t contain my tears,” she said.

Looking ahead to Malaga, she said the sustainability-themed showcase required designers to work only with existing materials, turning the process into a puzzle of fitting fabrics to modern sizing and unpicking and redoing work when necessary.

Having already produced three pieces, she is now working on a fourth design in the same line, again repurposing what she already has.

“I’m still in that pinch-me moment,” she said.

“I’m just excited to be there with my fellow designers.”

RESHAM KHIANI

Resham Khiani is preparing to showcase a bold red-themed collection in Malaga, drawing on seven years of training at the academy.

The upcoming exhibition will feature four pieces, with the final look still in progress. The collection builds on a dress she previously presented in Italy, titled Crimson Eclipse.

“Dorcas always taught me that in a collection there has to be a theme, a sense of relationship, if not brother and sister, then at least cousins,” she said.

While she often enjoys wearing her own designs, she said this exhibition is less about personal display and more about representation.

She said stressed that the focus is on the “workmanship, dedication, creativity and all the teachings” that are reflected in the pieces.

Having travelled alone to Italy last year for a show, she said the Malaga experience will be very different. This time she will be joined by people she knows, something she believes will make the event less daunting.

“You’ve got to have the right support network,” she said.

SHIRLEY SAMTANI

Shirley Samtani is set to present her Indo-Western collection which will celebrate both her Indian heritage and her life in Gibraltar while placing inclusivity as an important element.

Ms Samtani’s grandmother worked as a seamstress in India but, despite this, she refused to teach her daughters or grandchildren to sew, determined that they should not have to endure the same financial hardship and modest upbringing.

Regardless, Ms Samtani discovered she had a natural ability for sewing when struggling to find fashionable clothing in her size and she enrolled at the academy in 2018 initially “just to learn the basics” and make a few pieces for herself.

Her collection for Malaga consists of four looks, two plus-size pieces, originally made for herself, and two size 10 pieces. Her work is driven by a desire to show beautiful plus-size and inclusive designs, addressing what she sees as a lack of options for people who are “bigger or different”.

Her partially disabled sister served as the muse for one of the pieces, inspiring a design that both fits and flatters a body type that is often overlooked by mainstream fashion.

She added that she enjoys the technical and creative challenge of designing for women whose bodies do not conform to standard proportions, stressing that “not everybody’s the same shape”.

Her Malaga collection brings together Indian fabrics and floral themes with Western silhouettes and design elements, a style she said is true to herself.

GRACE MANFRED

Seventeen-year-old designer Grace Manfred is set participate at the catwalk show with her collection that is inspired by Marie Antoinette.

Her path to becoming a designer began at the age of eight when she watched a Barbie fashion film and asked her mother for a sewing machine.

What started as making clothes for dolls and hair scrunchies during lockdown became a serious pursuit when, at 13, she joined Dorcas Fashion Academy, learning pattern cutting and technical sewing skills.

A call by Charlene Figueras for designers to create a collection from recycled denim pushed Ms Manfred to do more and, with strong encouragement from her mother, she submitted work and began showcasing publicly.

Now she will take her work to an international platform, believing she may be the youngest designer ever to show at Malaga Fashion Week.

Her latest collection draws on the extravagance of Marie Antoinette using vintage floor-to-ceiling curtains and a matching bedspread.

The collection, titled Let Them Eat Cake, references the phrase widely attributed to Marie Antoinette and plays on the contrast between perceived royal excess and the humble, repurposed origins of the fabric. Although she has enough material for around 10 looks, four outfits will be shown on the runway.

She described herself as being in “pinch me” mode ahead of the event, adding she never expected to reach a fashion week runway at 17.