Event: Fashion - The Story of a Lifetime‏

Watson Kate Moss in Torn Veil Marrakech 1993

The Empty Quarter Gallery, Dubai-based art gallery devoted to fine art photography, with an emphasis on works exploring the photographic dimensions of the Arab world, opens the exhibition season with a grand show focusing on fashion. Creative gallery director Elie Domit has succeeded in bringing together an exquisite collection of vintage and modern prints by celebrated fashion photographers, whose lifetime stories are inextricably interwoven with 20th century high fashion.

Gundlach Lissy Schaper for Triumph Tanger, Marocco 1964

Iconic images, many of which are to be seen in Dubai for the first time, are paired with the remarkable story of Parveen Shaath, a true fashionista avant la lettre from Saudi Arabia. Miss Shaath dedicated her life to the very subject of these photographs, haute couture dresses, collecting the best specimens for the inner circles of Saudi society. A number of these dresses will be on display in the gallery. The result is a museum quality exhibition offering a rare opportunity in the Gulf region to experience the magical power of fashion.

Atoui Parveen dress

Parveen sitting on couch

In keeping with the gallery’s mission of exploring the photographic dimensions of the Arab world, many of the works have been selected with an eye on the locations where they were shot, such as Lebanon, Morocco, or Egypt.

Parveen Shaath spent the better part of her life with an undying devotion to all things fashion. From the early 1950s up until the late1990s, Parveen Shaath traveled near and far in search of evening dresses to sell to women in Saudi Arabia. Long before ‘fashion week’ became the cultural cornerstone of the fashion industry, she made the twice-yearly trek to Europe to handpick each and every piece that she sold, laboring over the details, the cuts, the sizes and the colors she chose to stock her boutique.

Like all fashion visionaries, Parveen Shaath knew the power that clothes carry, and her efforts at preserving a part of fashion history are finally reaping the fruits of her labor. In 2010, So Passé was set up to bring together her unrivaled collection of vintage, never-before-worn dresses to experience a rebirth.  So Passé aims to fashionably resurrect a selection from Parveen Shaath’s archives of evening wear to be exhibited, admired and revered. Especially for this occasion, Parveen Shaath has been portrayed by Aya Atoui, a Dubai-based emerging photographer, represented by the gallery.

Sokolsky Bicycle Street Paris 1963

These works will be shown as a separate installation. The photographers brought together in this exhibition are all internationally acclaimed for their lasting contribution to fashion photography, as well as to the history of 20th century photography. Fashion, for them, has become the story of their lifetime.

Klein Tatiana and Marie Rose Camels Picnic Morocco 1958

The exhibition will be held from September 14 - October 17, 2010 at The Empty Quarter Gallery, located in the heart of the Dubai International Financial Center, DIFC Gate Village, Building 2.


All featured images are copyrighted by the respective photographers