Syrian designer Rami Al Ali is at home on the global stage

In July, Rami Al Ali made history. After years of showing off-calendar in Paris, the Syrian designer was formally invited by the Federation de la Haute Couture et de la Mode to join the official haute couture schedule. In doing so, he became the first Syrian fashion designer to claim the rarest of titles: haute couturier.

For Al Ali, sending his looks down the runway in Paris was both triumphant and unnerving. “I have always looked at the official calendar and the names on it and thought: ‘This is an institution, these old brands, it’s farfetched.’” While “proud and happy” to be included, he admits to being “a bit intimidated that the work now is going to be seen more widely. It’s a bigger audience and my work is going to be examined thoroughly.”

If there is a theme to Al Ali’s career, it is careful, deliberate progress. “Whatever I’ve done with the brand since its start, I’ve always progressed forward. Small steps, very carefully chosen,” he explains. “From now on, the plan and the strategy need to be studied really well.”

But the newfound recognition does not mean he’s in a rush to get anywhere. “Moving forward is going to be still as careful, cautious and smart as it was before,” he says, assuring both himself and his audience.

Al Ali first arrived in Dubai in 1996, intending to stop over in the city before continuing his studies in the United States. “I was working on the internship and the paperwork and all of that. I took a temporary job in one of the old fashion houses in Dubai,” he says, “and that gave me a bit of confidence to stay a little bit longer.” Decades later, he is part of the beating heart of the city’s creative scene.

What kept him here was timing. The city was just beginning its evolution into a global fashion hub, with luxury brands setting up a regional presence and international editors flying in. “The clients became jet-setters and most of the fashion press and international brands started coming to the region,” he says of Dubai’s emerging status as a hub. The market was hungry for a potential entrepreneur to start something. There was high demand, but there was not enough supply. By 2001, he had opened his own atelier in the city.

About two and a half decades later, with his new title comes responsibility. “When you say ‘the first Syrian designer’, it is already a responsibility that you’re going to present the creative industry of a whole country,” he says. “It makes you feel proud.”

It also means he joins the exclusive club of Arab couturiers – such as Elie Saab, Zuhair Murad, Georges Hobeika and Mohammed Ashi of Ashi Studio – who, by carving out global recognition, created a lineage where none existed. “Graduating in 1995 and looking at the international landscape, I didn’t find an ideal who came from the same background. Someone who would give me hope to adjust my dreams to,” Al Ali remembers. “It was a low ceiling.”

Now, he hopes his own success can be the blueprint he once longed for. “It would give not only hope, but also a kind of manual for younger entrepreneurs, younger brands to look up to. And they will probably raise the bar.”

Al Ali knows better than to assume the role of gatekeeper. “Every day there’s younger talent that comes along that is cooler, edgier and more relevant.” But he believes the job of those who make it is to open doors. “I think it is our duty, when we get to certain places, to open those doors to the younger generation to make their dreams bigger.”

For Al Ali, couture is not only clothes, it is culture. “It’s a lifestyle. It is the ultimate luxury in the fashion industry. It represents the elite – not in terms of lifestyle, but in terms of taste.”

His latest collection draws directly from Syria – its crafts, its geometry and its overlooked history. “As always in my work, I go back to the craft, the artisan, the heritage. It is a permanent source of inspiration,” Al Ali explains. This season, however, he came with a special collaboration – a partnership with a Syrian organisation dedicated to archiving and restoring traditional craft.

“It is not only nostalgic, warm and very personal, but also a documentation of the identity that was lost and neglected over the past 12 or 13 years. Now we’re trying to restore it,” he says.

As we tour Al Ali’s Dubai atelier, the couture designer points to a look, with its geometric shapes inspired by Syrian mosaic and woodwork, punctuated with tassels for movement and modernity.

“It became a very strong reference. When you see it, immediately, you relate it to where it belongs,” he says.

As they say, you work for years and suddenly you’re an overnight success. Al Ali’s slow, steady and perfectly planned career means he now finds his name written beside Dior, Chanel and Balenciaga. A fact he finds surreal.

When asked if he has broken down some sort of gate that others can now get through behind him, Al Ali says: “I don’t think I’m the one who broke the gate, it’s my work. The creativity and authenticity of the work is what got their attention to put us next to those names.”

But this is only the beginning, the designer insists. “This is probably one of the major columns in building the brand globally. It’s a major one, but there are definitely still many other columns that need to come along with it to support going to the second floor, third floor and fourth floor in this high-rise building that we’re working in.”