{"id":248920,"date":"2026-08-14T13:09:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T13:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/248920\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T13:09:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T13:09:16","slug":"zahra-al-najjar-takes-iraqs-visual-history-to-the-runway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/248920\/","title":{"rendered":"Zahra Al-Najjar takes Iraq’s visual history to the runway"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every fashion designer has somewhere they return to for inspiration, whether it is an era, a place, a person or a particular image. For Iraqi-Canadian designer Zahra Al-Najjar<\/a>, it has always been magazines.<\/p>\n

From a young age, Zahra would leaf through her mother\u2019s Arabic magazines, studying the clothes, beauty looks and photography across the pages. They offered glimpses of a side of the MENA region, particularly Iraq, that felt familiar through her family but distant from her own life.<\/p>\n

Now 27, she collects vintage magazines from across the region, particularly from Egypt and Lebanon, sourcing old issues on eBay, some dating back to the 1950s.<\/p>\n

For her, they are more than fashion references; they are records of how people dressed, lived and saw themselves.<\/p>\n

“I’ve always gravitated towards magazines,” Zahra tells The New Arab. “They were how I discovered visual references, both from the Arab world and from fashion, through my mum’s Arabic magazines.”<\/p>\n

Her interest in these publications eventually led her to the Iraqi Print Archive<\/a>, which holds Iraqi magazines, books and other printed material documenting the country\u2019s cultural life, particularly before 2003.<\/p>\n

Much of the archive is available online, with publications also translated into English.<\/p>\n

She turned to the archive while developing her Central Saint Martins graduate collection<\/a>, asking to see publications from the 1960s through to the 1990s and early 2000s, with a particular focus on Iraqi women and their contribution to society.<\/p>\n

The archive sent her a wide selection, which she narrowed down to stories about Iraqi women working in factories, contributing to the workforce and the arts, as well as other glimpses of Iraqi life before the 2003 US-led invasion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One publication focused on vinyl and the music industry, with some of its images later appearing as prints across her collection.<\/p>\n

Zahra is an Iraqi-Canadian designer\u00a0[Photo courtesy of\u00a0Zahra Al-Najjar]<\/p>\n

For Zahra, the focus on women was personal.<\/p>\n

Born in Montreal and raised in Milton Keynes, she has only visited Iraq once and grew up hearing about the country from her parents and grandparents. She also grew up around women who were engineers and doctors, while her grandmother raised seven children in Iraq and ran a large factory.<\/p>\n

“Everything I know about Iraq comes from my parents and grandparents, and the stories they have told me about growing up there. They’re also very proud of it and have always spoken about it with so much love,” she says.<\/p>\n

This was part of what drew Zahra towards stories that showed Iraq before 2003, rather than the country as it is often represented through the 2003 invasion and the wars that followed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re often known for the invasion, but a lot of people don’t know about the heritage and everything we achieved as a society before then,” she adds.<\/p>\n

She saw how much these images could mean when she showed her mother the publications she had selected. Her mother had not seen them in more than 30 years.<\/p>\n

“She actually started crying,” Zahra recalls. “She said she had reached a point where she almost believed it had never happened because it had been so long ago.”<\/p>\n

Zahra says her mother’s reaction captures what sits at the heart of the collection: these are not simply old magazine pages being repurposed as fashion prints, but fragments of a visual history that her generation can look back on and her parents’ generation can recognise, giving the images another life while bringing a part of Iraq that once felt distant much closer to home.<\/p>\n

Scans selected from the Iraqi Print Archive from magazines featuring women in society before 2003\u00a0[Photo courtesy of\u00a0Zahra Al-Najjar]<\/p>\n

Scans selected from the Iraqi Print Archive from magazines featuring women in society before 2003\u00a0[Photo courtesy of\u00a0Zahra Al-Najjar]<\/p>\n

A collection rooted in memory<\/p>\n

Reflecting on her participation in the Central Saint Martins graduate runway, Zahra says it was a really special experience.<\/p>\n

Of the around 140 final-year students who presented their work, only 40 were selected for the press show, making her inclusion an important opportunity to represent an identity she says is still underrepresented at Central Saint Martins and in the wider fashion industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere aren’t many Arab students at Central Saint Martins either,” she says. “There might be one or two in each year, and we all kind of know each other. So it was really meaningful to have that platform and bring this part of my identity into the space.”<\/p>\n

That sense of identity also influenced the collection, which brought together prints from the Iraqi Print Archive with references to her family and the clothes she grew up around.<\/p>\n

Two of the six looks feature archival imagery, printed using sublimation so that the small text and photographs from the original magazines remained clear. She also worked with wool, cotton, silk chiffon and vintage fabrics, using layering throughout the collection.<\/p>\n

The idea of layering came directly from photographs of Zahra\u2019s family after they moved to Canada in the early 1990s.<\/p>\n

Used to a much warmer climate, they would wear draped dresses underneath large coats, mixing lighter fabrics with heavier ones. Zahra brought that same combination into the collection, pairing chiffon and silk with wool.<\/p>\n

That contrast between lighter and heavier fabrics can be seen in one of her three favourite looks, a pair of black-and-white trench coats.\u00a0One is layered over the other, with both featuring text, imagery and faces from the Iraqi Print Archive, including an iconic photograph of a former Miss Iraq.<\/p>\n

“I wanted it to feel like physical media right in front of you, where you can see the identities and the faces, and feel like you’ve been transported into that world,” she explains.<\/p>\n

Rare pre-2003 archival material woven into a floor-length asymmetrical trench coat\u00a0[Photo courtesy of\u00a0Zahra Al-Najjar]<\/p>\n

Close-up photos of the clothing prints inspired by Iraqi women who championed different careers before 2003\u00a0[Photo courtesy of\u00a0Zahra Al-Najjar]<\/p>\n

Another favourite is the calligraphy dress, created with London-based artist Nayab Ahmed<\/a>. Nayab travelled to Egypt during the collaboration to train with traditional calligraphy artists, before returning with the materials they used.<\/p>\n

The pair then created a print that looks like Arabic calligraphy but says nothing.<\/p>\n

For Zahra, the decision to create calligraphy without a specific meaning reflects her own relationship with Arabic. She speaks the language but is less confident reading and writing it, so she wanted to explore calligraphy through its appearance rather than its meaning.<\/p>\n

“I wanted to stay true to myself, and I wanted it to reflect what Arabic calligraphy is to me,” she says. “It’s beautiful, but maybe because of my reading and writing, I’m not able to appreciate it as much. Just appreciate it visually.”<\/p>\n

The calligraphy print was then transferred onto silk chiffon, which was crystal-pleated and paired with two jackets finished with a fraying technique Zahra developed during her final year.<\/p>\n

Zahra’s ‘Lost in Translation’ calligraphy dress\u00a0[Photo courtesy of\u00a0Zahra Al-Najjar]<\/p>\n

Zahra’s calligraphy dress was designed in collaboration with artist Nayab Ahmed\u00a0[Photo courtesy of\u00a0Zahra Al-Najjar]<\/p>\n

Her third favourite look takes a different approach, featuring a leather jacket covered in small vintage frames.<\/p>\n

Each frame features an Arab female singer, including Fairuz<\/a> and Umm Kulthum<\/a>, alongside other singers who influenced Zahra as she grew up.<\/p>\n

These references extend beyond the clothes and into the collection\u2019s accessories. Zahra sourced vintage headpieces from sellers in Europe and the US, some of which were decorated with feathers that looked like hair from a distance.<\/p>\n

She also built small mobile phones into headbands underneath the headwear, inspired by her mother and aunties putting their phones into their hijabs in the early 2000s.<\/p>\n

“I thought that was quite a funny pop culture reference,” she says.<\/p>\n

Zahra’s leather jacket design featuring small vintage frames displaying portraits of Arab female singers, including Fairuz and Umm Kulthum [Photo courtesy of\u00a0Zahra Al-Najjar]<\/p>\n

The early 2000s references also carried through into the beauty looks.<\/p>\n

Zahra looked to the vintage magazines she collected, particularly Egyptian publications, for the models\u2019 thin eyebrows, dark lips and heavy eye makeup.<\/p>\n

While the look may recall the late 1990s and early 2000s, Zahra found the same beauty style much further back in Egyptian magazines from the 1950s, particularly Al-Kaw\u0101kib Magazine<\/a>, where she found narrow eyebrows, dark red and almost-black lips and heavily lined eyes.<\/p>\n

Al-Kaw\u0101kib Magazine has captured Egypt\u2019s glamour and popular culture for nearly 90 years, making it one of the country\u2019s oldest and best-known arts magazines\u00a0[Photo courtesy of\u00a0Zahra Al-Najjar]<\/p>\n

To complete the look, Zahra gave the models a serious expression that reflected the same early-2000s references, asking them not to look angry but “as if they’re on the phone, focused and on their way somewhere.”<\/p>\n

The beauty look brought Zahra\u2019s archival references onto the Central Saint Martins runway, with thin brows, dark lips and heavily lined eyes inspired by the vintage Egyptian magazines she collects\u00a0[Photo courtesy of\u00a0Zahra Al-Najjar]<\/p>\n

The models\u2019 styling also reflected Zahra\u2019s early-2000s references, with serious expressions and small mobile phones tucked into their headscarves, inspired by the way her mother and aunties used to carry their phones in their hijabs\u00a0[Photo courtesy of\u00a0Zahra Al-Najjar]<\/p>\n

What comes next<\/p>\n

Upon reflection, Zahra says the references in her collection reflect a wider interest in archival fashion among young diaspora designers today, as a generation looks back at the places their parents came from and finds its own ways of engaging with that history.<\/p>\n

“I think that it’s growing because we are growing,” she says. “We’re kind of expressing our childhood, and we’re expressing what we’ve been through here in the West.”<\/p>\n

For Zahra, that connection to heritage also gives her work a political edge, even when she does not set out to make political fashion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t necessarily say my work is political, but because of my background, it becomes political,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

That is also where the archive plays a larger role in her work. The images allow Zahra to present a side of Iraq that she feels is often missing from the way the country is represented.<\/p>\n

“We’re trying to change the narrative and communicate a different perspective that isn\u2019t often seen,” she says. “That’s why it’s so important.”<\/p>\n

With her graduate collection now complete, Zahra is turning her attention to what comes next.<\/p>\n

She has been accepted into a master’s programme at Central Saint Martins and is awaiting news on her scholarship applications, while also considering returning to the fashion industry for a few years.<\/p>\n

She has already gained experience at Viktor & Rolf in Amsterdam, working in the couture department, and at Louis Vuitton as an assistant designer for women’s leather goods.<\/p>\n

The two placements exposed her to very different sides of the industry.<\/p>\n

At Viktor & Rolf, she learnt couture techniques and worked on showpieces, while Louis Vuitton gave her insight into the commercial side of design, from researching trends to developing products for a wider market.<\/p>\n

Both experiences, she says, helped build her confidence when she returned to Central Saint Martins for her final year.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Zahra hopes to build a fashion house of her own, with “my own atelier and my own team.”<\/p>\n

For now, her work is already attracting attention, with a museum expressing interest in acquiring several looks from her graduate collection. Zahra cannot reveal more yet, but says she will share the details when she can.<\/p>\n

Zainab Mehdi\u00a0is a British Iraqi journalist and the Associate Features Editor at\u00a0The New Arab. She holds a BSc in Modern History and International Relations from the University of Essex and an MA in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from SOAS<\/p>\n

Follow her on Instagram:\u00a0@zaiamehdi_<\/a>\/@zainabmehdiwrites_<\/a><\/p>\n