Moroccan designer Karim Adduchi presented his new collection “She Has 99 Names” in the Dove in Amsterdam. We have discovered Karim a couple of months ago, before our Emerging Talents Show during Milan Fashion Week in September. We could not wait to see his SS18 collection.
In “She Has 99 Names” Karim has given an oath to the women he had around when he lived in Imzouren as a child; the Berber village where he was born too. Adduchi shows these women in their distinctive complexity: beautiful and confused, sad and sad, furious and fragile.
In addition to Karim himself an immigrant, he works with his collections together with Syrian, Russian and Eritrean laborers and artists, who recently found their home in Amsterdam. He specifically aimed at workers whose work you do not often encounter on the catwalk.
Adduchi dives in the rich heritage of Morocco prior to each collection. He designs woolen fabrics, hand-woven by local laborers. Adduchi: “I want to revive local crafts, and transform them into contemporary looks.”
Even though Adduchi is not a political artist, he tries to map social problems with his art. Immigrants and refugees invite him to work with him in his collections. At first, these people were all unknowns, but their shared passion for craftsmanship and design brought them together.
Adduchi does not like the title refugee :”It’s very limiting. I work with two Syrian tailors, a woodworker from Aleppo, an Eritrean embroiderer. They bring all the skills. “
” It was a crazy mix of people. We had a Syrian tailor who cut patterns at a table, five Moroccan women embroidering and chatting at another table and a half naked model dressed in the middle. Total culture shock. Yet the people all returned. A Moroccan elderly lady prepared cooked chicken tajine for all who we ate together between the substances together. “
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