Where to buy
Limited-edition art prints of The Sofa Series: Sultani can be acquired from Reem El Mutwalli at www.reemelmutwalli.com
Ask any woman what she was wearing at key points in her life, and she’ll probably be able to tell you. Just as photographs, artworks and other souvenirs can evoke memories, a woman’s wardrobe can catalogue her personal history, while also more broadly reflecting the life and times in which she lived.
Reem El Mutwalli, who has previously described herself as a “scholar who happens to design”, has gathered and curated a collection of more than 170 Emirati dresses, many of which have been worn by members of the UAE’s royal families. The gorgeous fabrics, colours, weaving, embroidery and embellishments of the Sultani collection (named after a striped opaque silk that is popular in the region), provide fascinating insight into the UAE’s identity.
With the aim of making these exquisite pieces accessible to a wider audience, and providing a window into "the expression of a society's character and history, indicating aspects of its culture, heritage and prevailing attitude", El Mutwalli recently collaborated with Omani photographer Issa Saleh Al Kindy, to produce a series of limited-edition photographic prints called The Sofa Series: Sultani. These feature four different pieces from the collection, complete with accessories, modelled by El Mutwalli's daughter Mae Noaf, seated on a velvet sofa in her mother's home.
“Both parties are avid connoisseurs of culture and art,” says the designer of the collaboration. “Both [of us] understand the imperative need to accurately document and preserve such garments. And we both appreciate that many lovers of art, UAE heritage and culture, would like to keep a token of such articles of history, but cannot possibly acquire the original garment,” she adds.
El Mutwalli has previously collaborated with artists, events and institutions on unique installations or exhibits featuring select pieces from the Sultani collection. The fragile and embellished nature of many of the fabrics mean that the number of displays, not to mention their duration, needs to be limited, in order to preserve this collection for future generations. "These are articles of delicate fabrics that are hard to collect, due to an earlier un-sedentary lifestyle," she says. "People here have a culture of giving away or recycling their old garments."
The dresses in the collection date from the early 1950s, and are a culmination of 25 years of El Mutwalli's efforts. Sultani fabric is unique and cannot be replicated. "It represents my humble appreciation and is an act of giving back to a culture that I grew up in, and a history I have individually witnessed," she explains.
Look 1: modern design
This dress began with a hand-painted portrait of Sheikh Zayed, the Founding Father, by Sheikha Alyazia bint Nahyan Al Nahyan, who was an aspiring artist at the time. Her mother, Sheikha Fakhira bint Saeed Al Nahyan, then designed the blue chiffon garment to complement the artwork, with the addition of detailed embroidery and embellishment work, which was carried out by skilled artisans. It provides an example of the unification of two traditional articles of dress (the thobe and the kandura) into one, which is the norm nowadays as the kandura evolved into the inner slip of the thobe and is generally attached to it, at the neckline. It was worn on many occasions by Sheikha Alyazia and was ultimately donated to the Sultani collection.
Look 2: riot of colour
This ensemble embodies key elements of traditional UAE dress and dates back to around 1984. A burqa or face mask covers most of the wearer’s facial features. The shayla is made from black cotton gauze, which reflects an earlier style of this type of headscarf. Here, it engulfs most of the body to create an extra layer of concealment when combined with a thobe (the term used for a loose-fitting, formal over-garment). The body of the thobe is made up of coloured panels of lightly patterned chiffon. Traditional Emirati “teli”, or embroidery work, sees silver thread intertwined with monocoloured cotton, forming a lace pattern at the neckline. The kandura, an inner tunic dress, is made from traditional striped opaque silk known as sultani. Sirwal, or printed cotton underpants, are decorated at the ankle cuffs with teli work. All these articles were traditionally worn together in an array of mismatched textures and colours.
Look 3: bridal finery
Sheikha Hamda bint Mohammed Al Nahyan, maternal aunt to the President, Sheikh Khalifa, commissioned this dress as a gift to El Mutwalli and instructed the late Fatima bint Saad, a well-known palace dressmaker, to base the design on the style of her own wedding dress. The dress is embroidered on the neckline, central axis and sleeve cuffs with pure gold discs, some of which resemble embossed gold coins.
Look 4: fancy threads
Also from the 1980s, this brocade silk chiffon dress features metallic thread from Japan, which was introduced to the region around this time. The thobe is worn over the kandura. It is embellished with teli work, which has been applied to the neckline and sleeve cuffs. The dress was previously worn by Sheikha Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan, wife of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. El Mutwalli saw it being worn on numerous social and official occasions before it was eventually donated to the Sultani collection.
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Read more:
The evolution of the abaya
We speak to a master in the art of discretion: Dr Reem El Mutwalli
Dr Karima Alshomely on the inspiration behind The Emirati Burqa exhibition
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Company profile
Name: Infinite8
Based: Dubai
Launch year: 2017
Number of employees: 90
Sector: Online gaming industry
Funding: $1.2m from a UAE angel investor
THE CLOWN OF GAZA
Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
Rating: 4/5
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From: Baghdad, Iraq
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Favourite poet: Al Mutanabbi
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Sholto Byrnes on Myanmar politics
Brief scores:
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The biog:
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Tips on buying property during a pandemic
Islay Robinson, group chief executive of mortgage broker Enness Global, offers his advice on buying property in today's market.
While many have been quick to call a market collapse, this simply isn’t what we’re seeing on the ground. Many pockets of the global property market, including London and the UAE, continue to be compelling locations to invest in real estate.
While an air of uncertainty remains, the outlook is far better than anyone could have predicted. However, it is still important to consider the wider threat posed by Covid-19 when buying bricks and mortar.
Anything with outside space, gardens and private entrances is a must and these property features will see your investment keep its value should the pandemic drag on. In contrast, flats and particularly high-rise developments are falling in popularity and investors should avoid them at all costs.
Attractive investment property can be hard to find amid strong demand and heightened buyer activity. When you do find one, be prepared to move hard and fast to secure it. If you have your finances in order, this shouldn’t be an issue.
Lenders continue to lend and rates remain at an all-time low, so utilise this. There is no point in tying up cash when you can keep this liquidity to maximise other opportunities.
Keep your head and, as always when investing, take the long-term view. External factors such as coronavirus or Brexit will present challenges in the short-term, but the long-term outlook remains strong.
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The biog
Age: 19
Profession: medical student at UAE university
Favourite book: The Ocean at The End of The Lane by Neil Gaiman
Role model: Parents, followed by Fazza (Shiekh Hamdan bin Mohammed)
Favourite poet: Edger Allen Poe
WORLD CUP SEMI-FINALS
England v New Zealand
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Wales v South Africa
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LUKA CHUPPI
Director: Laxman Utekar
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Cast: Kartik Aaryan, Kriti Sanon, Pankaj Tripathi, Vinay Pathak, Aparshakti Khurana
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Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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Global state-owned investor ranking by size
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Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
Where to buy
Limited-edition art prints of The Sofa Series: Sultani can be acquired from Reem El Mutwalli at www.reemelmutwalli.com
