Moroccan designer Badr El-Din Boulaish: Make a choice for your children and families, because the dress is a trampling, inserting culture into the fabric.
Doha- Dress is not just a cloth with which we cover the bodies and cover the private parts, nor is it just a garment to guard against heat and cold. Rather, it is a means of expressing social status, the nature of a job or profession, and even political and ideological affiliation. On the other hand, it can also become a weapon to resist this invasion, and a means to revive the values of civilization and defend identity.
With these convictions, the Moroccan artist in the Qatari capital, Doha, Badr El-Din Boulaish, armed with an idea that aims to address the Arab and Islamic awareness, by creating designs that swim against “the flood of clothes that promote Western values and culture in our societies,” according to what he told Al Jazeera Net.
Cultural and civilized messages
Badr dreams that a day will come when his designs will crowd out the clothes of international brands, and he will flaunt his cultural and civilizational messages inspired by the Arab and Islamic heritage, whether contemporary or ancient.
The Arab Muslim artist and musician Abul-Hassan Ali bin Nafeh Al-Mawsili, better known by the nickname “Zaryab”, is not inferior to the Jamaican singer Bob Marley, who has been flocked by generations for T-shirts bearing his picture and name in bold Latin, some of which show him with a drug cigarette between his lips.
Many of the women who contributed to building Arab and Islamic civilization much prefer the Italian-American singer and model, Madonna Louise Ciccone, who frequently flocked to Arab and Muslim sons and daughters for various clothes bearing her picture or name.
Famous personalities in the history of Arab literature, such as Sinbad, Juha or Bahloul, or even real personalities such as Ibn Sina, Ibn Khaldun, Ibn Ziyad and Al-Mutanabbi, “can adorn the breasts or appearances of Arab youth, and this is a clear expression of belonging and cultural depth, without We need to consume – and often unconsciously – what other people give us of their personalities and flags.
Correct path
Badr was born in 1976 in the popular Al-Musalla neighborhood in Tangiers, northern Morocco, and grew up between its streets, and between the hills and valleys of the small city of Al-Qasr (North) with its picturesque nature and charming beaches. Since his childhood, he has been fond of drawing and design. The professors and administrators used to draw them in a caricature that provokes their ridicule.
But he “misled the path” – as he put it – and did not find anyone to sponsor and direct his talent, so he buried it and went to the Experimental Sciences Division, then “corrected the path” after that and returned to studying the art of design at the Institute of Applied Technology for Tailoring and Weaving in the same city, and graduated from it with distinction at the end of the nineties of the last century, After that, he joined a clothing company in Qatar in 2000.
Since the beginning of his work in this field, and since he is an avid reader of Arab and Islamic literature, history and heritage, Badr began thinking about establishing a brand in the field of clothing, with which he fights “the sweeping amount of insignificance that many international brands market to,” he told Al Jazeera Net.
Attempts to see
In 2009, it was the first attempt that unleashed his project, but it did not continue for special reasons, which Badr refused to disclose, but the dream kept growing with him for other years, until last year, when he proposed to an official of the “Awlad Abi Al-Aish” Association – which is one of the The ties of families that trace their descent back to the school, and belong to it, and are based in Tangier – to design T-shirts bearing the name and logo of the association, and to sell them to be a financial resource that develops their income, and many ideas and attempts emerged after that.
Badr invests historical and literary figures from all fields in his designs, and seeks to create cartoon characters with an Arab identity. He also selects phrases, poetic verses and immortal proverbs from the Arab and Islamic heritage to decorate the clothes he creates.
He says that in the first stage he wants to consolidate the idea of his project by printing immortal sayings, proverbs, and poetic verses in Arabic calligraphy on clothes, and sometimes prints drawings and designs of his creativity on them. But it speaks of Arab heritage and civilization.
Boulaish believes that “it is a matter of pride that our young men and women, men, women and children dress up in costumes with immortal verses of Al-Mutanabbi, Antara or Amr bin Kulthum, or on it a drawing commemorating the Battle of Hattin, or on it an Arab immortal proverb or wisdom inherited from our fathers and grandfathers, even if it is in the vernacular and one of the our dialects.”
And that, in his view, is “better, more durable, beneficial and purer than for our children to wear clothes with expressions in other languages, and in most cases they do not know their meaning. The worst thing is that some of these expressions insult the wearer while he is not aware, and may be indecent and offensive to the morals of those who carry them on his body. It may carry atheistic ideas, with which some of them enter the mosque to pray without knowing which infidelity is lined on his shirt.
fertile ground for success
Boulaish considers that the mere sight of the Arabic letter on the dress will lead to normalization with him and his liking for the wearer and the beholder, and it will be an invitation to contemplate its beauty and uniqueness, and that is a service to the Arab language and culture.
Badr is confident that the idea of creating designs for clothing inspired by our heritage will find the fertile ground for success if you find someone who perseveres in defending, nurturing and sacrificing for it. .
He says with confidence and trust as he speaks to Al Jazeera Net, “I do not expect success easily, but I will not give up, either success or success, my weapon in that is to rely on God and hard work and the ability to come up with ideas outside the box, as I rely on the latent awareness of the Arab nation.” .
Initially, Badr sought to find a place for his idea in the Qatari and Moroccan markets, and he agreed with some shops to display his goods for people to discover, and confirms that this project for him is above all an “awareness, intellectual and civilized project”, and this is his priority, but he Also, he does not deny that it is a commercial project that he wishes for success and expansion.
The Moroccan designer concludes that one of the pillars of the success of this project is its access to the hearts and awareness of Arab families, and relies on the parents’ attention to the nature of the clothes they buy, and recommends them saying, “Choose your children and your families, because the dress is a trampling, trampling the culture in the fabric.”