He wanted to be controversial. He wanted everyone to remember his name. So, during his first catwalk show he sent out a model dressed in a see-through burqa.
"He doesn't really understand what he's doing. He just wants to be provocative," says the novelist Alex Gilvarry of Boyet "Boy" Hernandez, the protagonist of his debut novel, From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant, published last month by Viking Penguin.
"The burqa is not a stab at Muslim culture," Gilvarry clarifies, "but towards the fashion industry and how it tries to be relevant and political, for the sake of being talked about."
Fresh out of design school in the Philippines, Boy moves to New York to launch his fashion career. With the help of an eccentric Pakistani neighbour, he starts his own label and is catapulted to fame. But when his financial backer turns out to be an arms dealer, Boy is implicated in a terrorist plot that sends him to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Vilified by the media as the "Fashion Terrorist", Boy's story is spun so far from the truth that he must write down his own version of events, including an account of the Williamsburg fashion scene and his life in the Philippines.
"Boy projects a machismo attitude we find in many Bildungsroman tales," says Gilvarry, 30. "But his is not on how to be a man, but how to be a man if you're a womenswear designer."
Equal parts memoir and satirical fiction, the novel was borne out of an interest to discover how immigrants attempt to fulfil the American dream in the aftermath of September 11, 2001.
"In many ways, I'm writing about myself," says Gilvarry, who's half-Filipino. Born and raised in Staten Island, the farthest borough from the centre of New York City, Gilvarry as a teenager would make constant trips to the city for the museums and movie houses.
"I was wowed by it all," he recalls. "I was very much an immigrant and wanted to move immediately."
At 18, Gilvarry moved to Manhattan to study at Hunter College. Later, in the mid-2000s, he worked for a children's publisher in SoHo, the city's arts centre. His girlfriend was a model. He also lived in Brooklyn, where he coexisted with aspiring artists of all types.
"The place is packed with hipsters," he says. "Sometimes it becomes too much. Do I really need to wake up, have a cup of organic coffee, then get a tattoo afterwards? Maybe not, but in Williamsburg, it's nothing extraordinary."
Gilvarry knew that one day all of it would be ripe for a comedic work. During the same time, he was closely following the tribunals in Guantanamo, listening to reports of enemy-combatants jailed indefinitely without being charged with crimes.
"To ignore it as a writer would be depressing and unfair," he says.
Armed with a plan to converge the world of couture and confinement, Gilvarry took out a US$7,000 (Dh25,700) loan so he could write the novel full time.
"Flannery O'Connor said it best: all the great comedic novels must be about life and death," Gilvarry says. "A comedy must have moments of severity for it to carry any meaning - that was something I focused on."
Four years after working on the novel, Gilvarry says he came out of it more politically inclined. "Like Boy, I used to be a very superficial person. I was in my early 20s and stuck up. Suddenly, I was catapulted to the reality of today. In many ways, the book became a metaphor not just for my own immigration but also my political awakening."
Although Gilvarry didn't travel to the Philippines until age 24, his main character was influenced by a Filipino he had known his whole life: his mother, who immigrated to New York in her early 20s.
"Coming from an immigrant family, I grew up in two worlds and never really felt embraced by either side. I think it's good preparation for becoming a writer, where you're always on the periphery, never really inside," he says.
Dealing with humour and politics, where did Gilvarry draw the line? Inside his prison cell, Boy tapers the sleeves and trousers of his orange jumpsuit in an effort to remain fashionable.
"I wasn't trying to be funny. I was just trying to capture the absurdity of both the fashion world and Guantanamo," he says. "Someone said I was exploiting Guantanamo. I'm sure when you write about these topics, you'll get angry comments. But that's exactly it - I am angry and I want my message out. I intend it to be provocative."
jgabrillo@thenational.ae
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cylinder turbo
Power: 240hp at 5,500rpm
Torque: 390Nm at 3,000rpm
Transmission: eight-speed auto
Price: from Dh122,745
On sale: now
A Bad Moms Christmas
Dir: John Lucas and Scott Moore
Starring: Mila Kunis, Kathryn Hahn, Kristen Bell, Susan Sarandon, Christine Baranski, Cheryl Hines
Two stars
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
Match info
Wolves 0
Arsenal 2 (Saka 43', Lacazette 85')
Man of the match: Shkodran Mustafi (Arsenal)
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
At a glance
- 20,000 new jobs for Emiratis over three years
- Dh300 million set aside to train 18,000 jobseekers in new skills
- Managerial jobs in government restricted to Emiratis
- Emiratis to get priority for 160 types of job in private sector
- Portion of VAT revenues will fund more graduate programmes
- 8,000 Emirati graduates to do 6-12 month replacements in public or private sector on a Dh10,000 monthly wage - 40 per cent of which will be paid by government
More from Neighbourhood Watch:
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
From Europe to the Middle East, economic success brings wealth - and lifestyle diseases
A rise in obesity figures and the need for more public spending is a familiar trend in the developing world as western lifestyles are adopted.
One in five deaths around the world is now caused by bad diet, with obesity the fastest growing global risk. A high body mass index is also the top cause of metabolic diseases relating to death and disability in Kuwait, Qatar and Oman – and second on the list in Bahrain.
In Britain, heart disease, lung cancer and Alzheimer’s remain among the leading causes of death, and people there are spending more time suffering from health problems.
The UK is expected to spend $421.4 billion on healthcare by 2040, up from $239.3 billion in 2014.
And development assistance for health is talking about the financial aid given to governments to support social, environmental development of developing countries.
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, (Leon banned).
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
MATCH INFO
Wales 1 (Bale 45 3')
Croatia 1 (Vlasic 09')
Three tips from La Perle's performers
1 The kind of water athletes drink is important. Gwilym Hooson, a 28-year-old British performer who is currently recovering from knee surgery, found that out when the company was still in Studio City, training for 12 hours a day. “The physio team was like: ‘Why is everyone getting cramps?’ And then they realised we had to add salt and sugar to the water,” he says.
2 A little chocolate is a good thing. “It’s emergency energy,” says Craig Paul Smith, La Perle’s head coach and former Cirque du Soleil performer, gesturing to an almost-empty open box of mini chocolate bars on his desk backstage.
3 Take chances, says Young, who has worked all over the world, including most recently at Dragone’s show in China. “Every time we go out of our comfort zone, we learn a lot about ourselves,” she says.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
A Long Way Home by Peter Carey
Faber & Faber