Colour, culture and Expo 2020: Behind the curtain of Runway Dubai’s fashion show for emerging talent
- Thursday, 30 September 2021
In an industry as notoriously competitive as fashion, the road to the runway is bumpy and littered with challenges. After Modupe Omonze experienced a setback launching her first show in the UAE, she realised that success and the inspiration to make your mark can come from the most unlikely place, as she recently explained to MDX Dubai’s Fashion Design cohort.
Modupe Omonze still gets emotional when she remembers the moment her professional journey in fashion took an unexpected turn. She had just moved to the UAE and was about to make a glittering splash on the local fashion scene by showcasing her collection at Dubai Mall.
But just days before the event was planned to go ahead, Modupe received the call that ultimately changed the trajectory of her career forever.
“The event management company I was working with told me the show couldn’t go ahead because they didn’t have the permits. I was devastated,” the fashion designer tells a busy, socially-distanced classroom of our BA Fashion Design students.
Modupe arrived in Dubai already having made a name for herself internationally as a designer who celebrates her love for arts and culture through her collections. She was born in Lagos, Nigeria and studied fashion in Trinidad and Tobago, where her graduate pieces featured in the local media.
“I have been fortunate to have lived in different parts of the world and studied other people’s culture. This has influenced my designs greatly,” Modupe told Out and About magazine in an earlier interview.
The show that never went ahead at Dubai Mall fueled her greatest work, when she turned the temporary setback into the inspiration for her career-defining next step. “I picked myself up and founded Runway Dubai,” Modupe says, addressing the room of budding designers. She’s a gripping speaker – our students are silent, hanging on her every word.
Launched in 2013 shortly after her arrival in the UAE, Runway Dubai is a leading annual fashion platform in the Middle East that provides a launchpad for emerging designers to harness their creative talent and showcase their collections to UAE and global industry leaders and fashion press.
At the invitation of our Head of Fashion Design Vaishali Raj, Modupe visited our fashion lab on campus, Icon Studio, to encourage our students to take part as a way to enrich their learning journey during their BA Honours Fashion Design studies. The Middlesex Fashion Design programme is UK-accredited, taught in Dubai, and currently in its third intake, with the first students set to graduate this academic year.
Industry speakers like Modupe regularly visit Icon Studio to provide specialist workshops as part of the curriculum. During this year’s Week of Welcome, Middlesex Dubai alumni Dina Melwani, founder of haute couture fashion house Melwani Couture, and her team delivered an insightful interactive workshop about the importance of sustainability in the fashion industry, which according to the World Economic Forum produces 10% of all humanity’s carbon emissions. Dina and her team demonstrated ingenious ways of using leftover fabric to reduce wastage.
As the founder of the Fashion Sustainability Summit, Modupe is also a strong advocate for eco-friendly fashion practices. Runway Dubai hosted the first Summit in 2019 in partnership with Vaishali Raj, who was a lead speaker during the accompanying panel discussion. Previous themes of the annual Runway Dubai fashion show have also included messages around sustainability and inclusivity.
The theme of this year’s Runway Dubai show is “Two cultures, one garment”, and the show will award Expo Fashion Awards to all participants. The show takes place on 18th November and 19th November 2021 at Marriott Hotel Al Jaddaf, Dubai, and will be an extravaganza of colour and culture. Modupe says she chose the theme as a way to pay tribute to the values of the upcoming Expo 2020 Dubai, the World’s Greatest Show and largest global event to be held in the Arab world.
“Expo 2020, just like the Expo Fashion Awards, will lift people’s spirits and provide us with a chance to start over after a year away. Expo 2020 signifies life and colour and brings all countries together,” Modupe explains following the workshop. “The Expo Fashion Awards takes place alongside Expo 2020.”
The Expo Fashion Awards is the first professional show for many of our students and gives them the opportunity to gain the invaluable experience of producing and showcasing a fashion collection by working to a deadline, in line with standard industry practice. They will manage their catwalk presentations; work with real-life models on pre-show fits and trials (adjusting clothing to fit comfortably); speak to the press; and connect with industry practitioners at networking events alongside the main catwalk show.
As part of the show’s theme – that reflects Modupe’s personal passion for cultural celebration through fashion as well as the spirit of Expo 2020 – participating designers must incorporate a culture that inspires them or that they identify with into their collections. The twist? To challenge them and get their creative juices flowing, participants must also create their collections using a fabric that is notoriously difficult to work with.
“Fashion is a highly-competitive industry. Hearing stories like Modupe’s demonstrates to our students that they need to be resilient and ambitious, face challenges head on, and believe in their creative vision. It also teaches them that failure is normal on the road to success in their careers,” Vaishali Raj says when asked about how the Expo Fashion Awards will help our students develop professionally.
With an aura of confidence and as a picture of positivity, Modupe is a living example of how perseverance pays off. When she shared the story of her path to fashion success, she set our students alight with curiosity about how the Runway Dubai show would benefit them as young designers. When it came time to register, several student teams gathered around Modupe to ask questions and sign up.
According to Modupe, what’s the greatest lesson from her story that our students can take with them in their careers? As she told our enchanted young designers: “If you challenge yourself, you better yourself. And don’t forget to choose your own outfit for when you go out on that runway!”
Vaishali captures our excitement for the show perfectly. She told us: “All the remains to say is that we can’t wait to see our students’ collections on the ramp and cheer them on!”
Do you dream of seeing your designs grace the runway at Fashion Week? Are you fascinated by the global impact of the fashion industry? Find your style and yourself on our BA Fashion Design! Apply now to secure your place.
