Nazzal Studio insists on the permanence of Bedouin traditions

This past Copenhagen Fashion Week, Sylwia Nazzal debuted her FW26 collection as the first Palestinian designer on the schedule, ensuring her arrival landed as a lasting statement. A winner of the FTA Franca Sozzani Debut Talent Award in 2024, Nazzal has built a name for her brand rooted not simply in embracing heritage, but in insisting on its continued presence, arriving with a clarity of intent that resists dilution.

If Nazzal’s collection were a place, it would take us to Bilad al-Sham before colonisation and external intervention. Titled Al-Najah, translating to ‘Survival’, the collection leads us into a harsh landscape where survival is rooted in wisdom and instinct, knowledge bestowed only upon those indigenous to the land. Outsiders cannot endure it. They are unaware of the centuries of traditions and unspoken systems that Bedouin communities developed in order to survive. Each garment detail gestures towards this way of life, one that enabled not just endurance, but flourishing within desert landscapes. Every rope, every fold of fabric, every movement of cloth speaks to generations of adaptation and lived knowledge passed down through the land.

It is important to note that Al-Najah is not a replication of Bedouin dress, but an exploration of Bedouin life through fabric. In a moment where indigenous histories are erased as quickly as they are exoticised, Nazzal’s Al-Najah reads as an act of cultural insistence. The collection is grounded in natural and sustainable materials, never straying from the ethos of either the work or the brand.

Tying the collection together is a shoot featuring Kurdish model and content creator Diba Hikmat, photographed by Hussein Mardini. We spoke with Nazzal about the collection, its roots and its future within the current cultural landscape.

Why do you think it’s important to bring attention to Bedouin life and traditions? 

We live in such a fast-paced world that we’re constantly scrolling and looking for trends and hyper-fixating on what celebrities are doing. When you strip all of that away, you’re left with something much more real. What actually sits at our core as humans, and especially as Arabs. Our values, our traditions, our relationship to land, to survival, to community. Bedouin life carries that knowledge. It reminds us of instincts we still have but don’t always know how to access anymore.

What was your process of translating lifestyle into garments? 

Honestly, at the core, it was looking at those survival instincts that make us humans. Why did people dress the way they did? What purpose did it serve? Bedouin tattoos weren’t decorative. They were spiritual, protective, tied to the tribe and freedom. Clothing was the same. Even something like extending the sleeves of the thob wasn’t an aesthetic choice. They could be tied back to work the land. Once you understand those functions, the design becomes very honest. I look at a specific detail and emphasise it.

A lot of fashion trends today are rooted in reproducing the past. Do you see this collection as a step into the future or aligning with the current trend cycle?

I don’t really think in terms of trends. I love our past and our heritage, and I hold onto it very tightly, especially when it feels like the West is constantly trying to erase us or dilute us. When I create, I’m asking what detail from our culture deserves attention. How can I take something small and make people really see it. That, to me, is where the future comes from.

Bedouin knowledge has historically been excluded from formal histories and institutions. Do you see this collection as a way of asserting alternative knowledge systems through fashion?

100%. Our culture is constantly appropriated, but rarely understood. You see the hijab on a runway in Paris, while at the same time, Muslim women are banned from wearing it in the workplace in France. That contradiction infuriates me. I want people to see our culture through our own lens. There is space in the creative world for Arab voices and Arab knowledge systems. I’m just one voice, but it’s important that we’re the ones telling our stories.

Materials and slow process are central to this collection. How did working with hand-built techniques and natural elements shape both the outcome and your relationship to the work itself?

It completely changes your relationship to the garment. When you’re punching thousands of holes by hand, threading everything manually, working four days straight on one jacket, you feel the labour in your body. You respect it more. Hand-dyed fabrics give colours you’ll never get from artificial pigments. Using desert rocks, henna, and natural latex, you’re working with materials that have their own reactions that you have to learn to work with. You collaborate with them. You can see the time in the garment and value it. That’s what makes it beautiful to me.

In a region where rapid urbanisation often distances people from their ancestral ways of living, what role do you think fashion can play in reconnecting people to cultural memory without reducing it to heritage branding?

I think valuing the craft is important, and focusing on that, not symbolism. I’m interested in technique. Using the same dyes, the same braiding methods, the same logic behind construction. The world is fast, and at the end of the day, the fashion community is meant to be more than just a Western gaze. I don’t expect the world to be nomadic, but I expect the world to appreciate culture and how much it has to offer. I expect that my country has traditions, and it already has a traditional dress. When I enter a fashion space, I ask: How cam I take a sleeve detail or a hand-braided seam and elevate it so it’s respected, not overlooked.

Aside from Bedoin culture, what other influences did you have throughout making this collection? 

Collaboration played a huge role. Working with the artist Jad Maq shifted everything. We stopped thinking about wearability and started thinking about each garment as an art piece. His approach and practice are completely different from mine, so seeing how he created also changed the outcome a lot. He hand-painted every piece with henna, which brought in a very instinctive, experimental process. Bedouin culture was the focus, but this collection wouldn’t exist without the community around us during the research and development phase. None of this happens in isolation.

What can we hope to see from you in the future?

More celebration of heritage, and more Arab voices taking up space. The West has taken so much from our cultures, but what we have to share from our own perspective is far richer. We just haven’t shared it enough on our terms. For me, that’s how you honour heritage, by sharing it honestly and from within.