Photo: Youssef Oubahou
At the recent Paris Couture Week, Moroccan fashion designer Sara Siham Chraibi made an impressive entrance with her brand Maison Sara Chraibi. Showcasing a collection steeped in her country’s heritage, the designer and architect offered a fresh je ne sais quoi to the calendar. “I had been dreaming of this for years,” smiles Chraibi, whose faithful clients include the likes of the famous Moroccan singer Asma Lamnawar and the well-known ac esses Nora Skali, Samia Akariou, and Ouidad Elma. “I simply filled out an online application after a meeting with the president of the Federation of Haute Couture and Fashion, Pascal Morand, who convinced me to apply. I took my courage in both hands and went to find a sponsor. Sidney Toledano, CEO of LVMH Fashion Group, agreed to support me; everything went very fast after that,” she says. With only six weeks to prepare for her show, she recalls the stress and excitement made her stronger, helping her put all her focus and passion into her debut.
Sara Chraibi. Photo: Youssef Oubahou
To oud music, composed by her uncle Said Chraibi, models seemed to glide down the runway, allowing guests to really “discover the garment,” noted the designer. A dark cape constructed with braiding featured a dusting of luminescent pearls, which also decorated a headpiece, the jewels delicately trickling over the face. Another covering looked like a cage, or a deconstructed mashrabiya with the white silk of its dress underneath peeking through. A single-breasted overcoat saw its lower half perform a poetic dance as its long fringes moved like raffia and glimmered with golden appliqués. Black velvet trousers were paired with a top constructed with rows of beads. Jewelry as clothing structured with golden threads where no two are the same.
Photo: Youssef Oubahou
With this collection, Chraibi aimed to bring the freshness of a Mediterranean, North African point of view, and the know-how of Moroccan luxury. “I used the Sfifa weaving technique – Moroccan embroidery – to create a fabric rather than use it as an ornament, as it is done traditionally,” she explains of her craft. “I mixed raw materials from Morocco, golden thread, and silk fringe to build garments as a link between two cultures and realites,” she continues. Chraibi was keen to invite other Moroccan creatives to partake in her show. The bags are a collaboration with Rabat-based Azaly Private while the shoes are from Zila Russi, based in Casablanca. The whimsical hair was done by Moroccan Ilham Mestour, artistic director of Balmain Hair Couture. The combined work made for a kaleidoscopic identity showcasing both tradition and authentic innovation. “I aspire to fashion that can make women as beautiful as they are, for the beauty of the creative gesture, for freedom of movement and the adornment. We are today at a time when fashion can only be enriched by its diversity,” says Chraibi, whose brand aesthetic revolves around the idea of subdued femininity. The Sara Chraibi women are sophisticated but not overtly so. Feminine but not girly. They are at peace, confident, and fierce, yet with a certain softness. The fashion designer considers them a tribute to Moroccan women through a fictional mythology. “It is a tale of timeless transmission: the gift given by her mother who was a seamstress herself, but also the collective consciousness of women pictured here as regal goddesses.”
Everything started during a beautiful evening in December 2009; a night at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris. Chraibi visited the exhibition Madeleine Vionnet, Fashion Purist and it was a shock for her, a revelation. “Her work was the exact transcription of the vocabulary of modern architecture in a garment. Everything was there: the puri of the lines, the elegance and lightness of the structure, the quest for the essential. I then realized that fashion and architecture could share the same vision, a kind of quest for accuracy,” says Chraibi. Madeleine Vionnet’s legacy gave her the courage to believe that she had a legitimacy as an architect to design clothes and to make a living of it. “A real reconversion followed. I knew how to sew and embroider but for the rest, I had to learn everything,” she recounts. Chraibi buried her head in books and visited museums. In her quest for new reference points in creation, she discovered the Eastern inspirations of Jeanne Lanvin, grew fascinated by the power of Alexander McQueen’s posthumous collection, and enjoyed the accuracy of Azzedine Alaïa. “We are the heirs of what we admire. With the works of my mentors, I have built my own invisible links of filiation,” she says. Of the new way of life that she is building in her workshop – where a team of 11 petites mains sew continuously – no two days are alike. “In general, I take stock in the morning of the orders in progress. Sometimes I do custom fittings. A lot of me is spent talking to my clients. When I am not working on an order, I create new models and work on new textures.”
Photo: Youssef Oubahou
Growing up in an environment of art, culture, and conviviality, Chraibi was introduced to sewing and embroidery by her mother at a very early age. Born in Rabat, in 1982, couture and art were a family affair. After studying architecture in Rabat, Chraibi moved to Paris where she studied for a master’s degree in philosophy and theory of architecture. “In Paris, my passion for fashion and tailoring was nourished by the magical energy and the creative vitality of the city. In parallel to my work as an architect, I started to draw, sew, and embroider a multitude of couture pieces,” she recalls. In 2012, she presented her first collection Anatomic Architecture at the finals of a competition organized by Les Ateliers de Paris, before participating the same year in Festimode Casablanca, a Moroccan Fashion Week where her models walked under the nave of Casablanca’s iconic Sacred Heart Cathedral. Praised unanimously by the public and the press, these first appearances were at the origin of a real professional switch. A fashion designer was born, and a brand carved its way into the haute couture world, with a specific Moroccan art of living and know-how; one inspired by an architectural background and an ar san craftsmanship.
Photo: Youssef Oubahou
For Sara Chraibi, an outfit is as precise as a building. She draws clothes the same way she draws a blueprint, a plan, or a diagram for a house – with surgical precision. Her work is recognized as much for the accuracy and puri of its lines as for the sensitivity of its embroideries with multiple influences. “From my first job as an architect, I would retain the sense of rigor and construction. Each collection is a new story that will often be a double work on the structure of the garment and its texture,” says the designer who considers couture to be a dream, a celebration of uniqueness.
Photo: Youssef Oubahou
Photo: Youssef Oubahou
Originally published in the April 2023 issue of Vogue Arabia
Makeup: Fathi Shady
Models: Athiec Chol Malel Geng, Orisha Kniza/8SKY Production
Producer: Ankita Chandra
Style assistants: Najat Bakhayi, Maryam Tazi
Photography assistant: Malak Housni
Location: Story Rabat
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