Nora Al Shaikh Presents Captivating Collection at Arab Fashion Week’s Vogue Talents Day

Saudi Nora Al Shaikh was one of the four talented designers selected to be part of Vogue Talents Day during Arab Fashion Week. Vogue Italia’s Deputy Editor-in-Chief and Head of Vogue Talents Sara Sozzani Maino cemented the Jeddah-based designer’s status as an up-and-coming force when she handpicked her to showcase her spring/summer 2020 collection on the special day of the three-week fashion festival.

Along with other chosen creative talents Dhruv Kapoor, Hussein Bazaza and Daniele Carlotta, Al Shaikh fascinated all the well-heeled fashionistas with her extraordinary collection. For next season’s luxury ready-to-wear pieces, the designer, who launched her namesake brand in 2012, continued to take inspiration from her Saudi heritage. While crafting for confident, cosmopolitan women, Al Shaikh is constantly inspired by local cultures and craft traditions, but never in a literal way.

The sought-after designer also fuses her background with a global perspective. A seasoned traveller, she gets ideas from architecture, art installations and, perhaps most importantly, the people she encounters on the streets of the various cities she visits. Subsequently, her unique aesthetic appeals to women all over the world. 

Al Shaikh has particularly become associated with strong architectural lines and rich colour combinations. And women find her contemporary and feminine streamlined separates and dresses, which come in richly hued satins, silks and cottons, easy to wear wherever they are in the world. Al Shaikh is also known for her deconstructed tailored shirts that feature in all her collections.  Plus, she has always been interested in playing with proportions and creating separates that can be worn in different ways that look to her Najdi roots in central Arabia. Those origins are also evident in her choice of colours and the use of cording for embellishment.