Artist Patricia Millns. Courtesy: The National
Artist Patricia Millns. Courtesy: The National

Fashion Forward: Q&A with artist & D3 Ambassador Patricia Millns



The line between art and high fashion is a fine one according to Dubai-based artist Patricia Millns. She’s taking part in a panel discussion at FFWD on Saturday at 8pm. Here’s what the award-winning artist had say about style and design.

Patricia, you’re involved in FFWD for the first time this year, how so?

They asked me to be a speaker on one of the panel discussions. The panel is ‘Art & Fashion’ which of course is my total passion. My artwork is informed by fashion and I don’t see a big split between the two.

How precisely is your art influenced by fashion?

I think fashion and art coexist, especially when you get to the higher levels of haute couture – that’s art. When you think of Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece [conceptual art performance in which Ono kneels on stage wearing a draped black garment. Audience members are then requested to cut in until she is naked]. Or take the high fashion of Issey Miyake or Yohji Yamamoto – they combine together art, design and technology. I can’t see those barriers being of any great importance anymore.

I see you are wearing Issey Miyake, is he one of your favourite designers?

Yes, I wear a lot of him generally and wear the Pleats Please range for every day. I also tend to wear a lot of black. And with the greatest respect to all those amazing shoe designers out there, I tend to go with flat shoes. I think it’s beautiful to see women wearing their designs [of shoes] but I go for clothes with dramatic forms and shapes instead. Comfort is a big deal for me.

Who are you looking forward to seeing at FFWD?

I think there are some amazing designers here. I’m always keen to see who’s new - because they are the future and you can’t always go with what’s past. That said, you have Essa, Zayan and Fern One - and of course I’ve chosen ones who are very dramatic and artistic. People in Dubai are making such incredible clothes these days, no designer can be left out. You need to see them all and be inspired.

How they line up for Sunday's Australian Grand Prix

1 Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes

2 Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari

3 Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari

4 Max Verstappen, Red Bull

5 Kevin Magnussen, Haas

6 Romain Grosjean, Haas

7 Nico Hulkenberg, Renault

*8 Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull

9 Carlos Sainz, Renault

10 Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes

11 Fernando Alonso, McLaren

12 Stoffel Vandoorne, McLaren

13 Sergio Perez, Force India

14 Lance Stroll, Williams

15 Esteban Ocon, Force India

16 Brendon Hartley, Toro Rosso

17 Marcus Ericsson, Sauber

18 Charles Leclerc, Sauber

19 Sergey Sirotkin, Williams

20 Pierre Gasly, Toro Rosso

* Daniel Ricciardo qualified fifth but had a three-place grid penalty for speeding in red flag conditions during practice

Review: Tomb Raider
Dir: Roar Uthaug
Starring: Alicia Vikander, Dominic West, Daniel Wu, Walter Goggins
​​​​​​​two stars

BACK%20TO%20ALEXANDRIA
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ETamer%20Ruggli%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarring%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ENadine%20Labaki%2C%20Fanny%20Ardant%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E3.5%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A

A Cat, A Man, and Two Women
Junichiro
Tamizaki
Translated by Paul McCarthy
Daunt Books 

Things Heard & Seen

Directed by: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini

Starring: Amanda Seyfried, James Norton

2/5

The smuggler

Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple. 
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.

Khouli conviction

Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.

For sale

A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.

- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico

- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000

- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950

A MINECRAFT MOVIE

Director: Jared Hess

Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa

Rating: 3/5

History's medical milestones

1799 - First small pox vaccine administered

1846 - First public demonstration of anaesthesia in surgery

1861 - Louis Pasteur published his germ theory which proved that bacteria caused diseases

1895 - Discovery of x-rays

1923 - Heart valve surgery performed successfully for first time

1928 - Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin

1953 - Structure of DNA discovered

1952 - First organ transplant - a kidney - takes place 

1954 - Clinical trials of birth control pill

1979 - MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, scanned used to diagnose illness and injury.

1998 - The first adult live-donor liver transplant is carried out

The biog

Name: Greg Heinricks

From: Alberta, western Canada

Record fish: 56kg sailfish

Member of: International Game Fish Association

Company: Arabian Divers and Sportfishing Charters

The Brutalist

Director: Brady Corbet

Stars: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn

Rating: 3.5/5

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 

Profile of Tamatem

Date started: March 2013

Founder: Hussam Hammo

Based: Amman, Jordan

Employees: 55

Funding: $6m

Funders: Wamda Capital, Modern Electronics (part of Al Falaisah Group) and North Base Media

NO OTHER LAND

Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal

Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham

Rating: 3.5/5