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FTA 2022 Winner Moroccan Artsi Ifrach on Making a Lasting Impact with His Slow Fashion

Winner of the Fashion Trust Arabia evening wear prize, Moroccan Artsi Ifrach reflects on making a lasting impact with his slow fashion – and the growing clout of Arab culture.

Photo: Amina Zaher

“It will not be seasonable, it will not be trendy, it will not be something that needs to be changed,” proclaims the Marrakech-based designer Artsi Ifrach on acquiring a garment from his avant-garde Maison ARTC label. “It will be something you want to keep, something that you cherish, something that is only you, because we are one-of-a-kind people.” One of the most gifted and revolutionary designers working today, Ifrach offers a new way to rethink the very concept of fashion. Using antique, vintage, and repurposed fabric, old textiles, and scraps of metal, Ifrach creates dazzling, deeply original one-off pieces marked by their vibrant colors, bold patterns, and variety of materials. On models that Ifrach also styles and photographs himself, the ensembles usually include imaginative headpieces and face coverings, and daring jewelry. Bought in flea markets and on his wide-ranging travels, the materials are – importantly for the designer – imbued with a past: they hold stories and memories. In breaking down traditional pieces to create contemporary clothes, Ifrach manages to simultaneously preserve while creating something new, to pay homage to the craftsmanship without museum-izing, and to infuse old fabric with newfound relevance. “I think the future is to go back,” he says. “I am taking what already exists and giving it a new life.”

Photo: Artsi Ifrah for Maison ARTC and Mahdi Sabik

Transforming vintage textiles into exclusive wearable art earned Ifrach the coveted 2022 Fashion Trust Arabia (FTA) Award for the Evening Wear category. The gala was held at the National Museum of Qatar at the end of October before an audience that included honorary chair of FTA HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, and co-chairs HE Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad Al Thani and Tania Fares, along with a plethora of high fashion glitterati from Bella Hadid and Naomi Campbell to Egyptian actresses Yasmine Sabri and Salma Abu Deif, Emirati singer Balqees, and the Lebanese fashion entrepreneur Karen Wazen. As Ifrach clutched his FTA Award, the tattooed letters H-O-P-E were clearly visible on his right hand. “It took a lot of hope to get there,” he explains a week after the ceremony on a Zoom call from London. The day is sunny and breezy, and Ifrach, known for his collection of fabulous headwear, sits hatless in the garden in the afternoon fall sun, with a patterned, parrot green scarf wound around his neck. “It was a very long journey.”

Photo: Artsi Ifrah for Maison ARTC

Born in Jerusalem to Moroccan parents, that journey to the podium in Doha was not only decades in the making but it was also far from straightforward. Ifrach is self-taught. He did not go to fashion or design school, and has never received any formal training in the craft. Rather, he studied at a ballet academy and danced professionally until he was 25. Once aware of that important stage, his development in becoming a fashion designer seems obvious. His garments tend to be voluminous and layered, appearing to float. They have a boundarypushing theatricality, a large-spirited showmanship to them, and an essence of pure joy. “For me, the link between ballet and my work as a designer is that I dance my work. I don’t walk it, I don’t run it, I dance it,” he says. By that he means it is flowing and effortless. “As long as I dance it, I will make it.”

Photo: Artsi Ifrah for Maison ARTC

After the ballet, Ifrach worked in a fashion boutique in Tel Aviv and began styling for other artists. He moved to Amsterdam and eventually Paris, where he lived for five years, creating pieces from recycled couture fabrics (including ones by Gucci, Oscar de la Renta, and Emilio Pucci) that he showed during couture week. But it was when he settled in his parents’ hometown of Marrakech, a dozen years ago, that he found his footing. His roots were there, and so was his future. The city offered a level of creative freedom unlike any he had experienced, and certainly no shortage of inspiration on the street, but also a sense of home. He states, “I belong 100% to Morocco.” In 2017, he set up his label. “I didn’t consider myself a designer before Maison ARTC was established,” he says. “As I was looking for my voice and DNA for a long time.” The search ended in Marrakech. “I could not be the creative person I am today without my Moroccan heritage and roots as I believe my creative DNA is Moroccan.” In appreciation, he dedicated his FTA Award to the country.

Photo: Artsi Ifrah for Maison ARTC and Mahdi Sabik

The Maison ARTC workshop (and appointment-only showroom) is located in Marrakech’s Gueliz district, a block off the broad Avenue Mohammed V (and next to the city’s hottest restaurant, +61). With inspiration and some ideas in mind, he gathers stacks of fabrics, and then sets to work in the atelier with his two key collaborators, Fatiha who does the embroidery; and Samira who cuts patterns and sews garments. Ifrach doesn’t sketch his designs. This, he fears, can inhibit his freedom, and he doesn’t “want doubt step into my creative process,” he says. “I keep it free to let my ideas come while I create the pieces.” That means working directly with the fabric, often on a model. The hand-stitching and embroidering on the pieces are exquisite – but also, he admits, imperfect. “We are not machines and shouldn’t be,” he comments. “When something is made by hand it doesn’t have the same feeling. The machine doesn’t speak. But when a person does it, it is like the garment is talking to you.”

Maison ARTC pieces take from two days to significantly longer to create. An elaborate, enveloping work based on the British trench coat and the Muslim burqa that he did specially for the current Africa Fashion exhibition at London’s Victoria & Albert (V&A) Museum took six months. Titled ‘A Dialogue Between Cultures’ and a centerpiece of the landmark exhibition, it consists of three parts (a dress, a mask, and a crinoline) made from taupe organza, covered with hand motifs, and embroidered with sequins, satin ribbons, and, on the back, a long Nelson Mandela quote. “I think that slow fashion is the future – not because we have to slow down, which is another thing that we have to do – but also because I think this is what makes us valuable.” Value, for him, “means putting all of yourself into the process, your heart and soul, your DNA, culture, and memory.” That is impossible if you are riding the industry tide of speed and volume and always looking for what is new. “I don’t work from the head. I work from my heart,” he says. “I capture emotions and dreams rather than trends.”

Photo: Artsi Ifrah for Maison ARTC and Mahdi Sabik

The FTA Award has brought welcomed attention to this slowed-down, handmade approach and, he hopes, will help show the bigger houses that it is possible to do the business of fashion in a new way. “Upcycling is not only valuable – it can also be successful,” remarks Ifrach. The growing clout of the annual FTA Awards also demonstrates for him a larger point that designers in the region don’t need to move to the US or Europe any longer. “The prize recognized my work but also recognized the culture and heritage and the significance of staying in one’s own country. It recognized being an ambassador for what Arab culture means and what fashion means to us and why it is so important for us,” he explains in an impassioned burst. “Everything is possible in Mena today. To remain in the region, to create, to find authentic expressions. And to become a success – not become an immigrant of success but successful regardless of immigration.” There was another reason that winning the prize has so deeply moved the designer. “I didn’t receive any recognition for a long time, but I was really determined and disciplined,” he reflects. Ifrach held steadfast to his own vision, something that is not easy in an industry that tends to induce deep self-doubt. “I never gave up on myself and what I wanted to do. I never looked up and said, ‘OK, I want to be that person.’ No. I want to be myself and want to be recognized as myself as well.” He pauses, and with a mischievous grin adds, “It might sound a bit cheesy, but if you want to be somebody else, somebody else is already you.”

Originally published in the December 2022 issue of Vogue Arabia

Read Next: Fashion Trust Arabia Awards 2022: Everything you Missed From the Spectacular Evening in Doha

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