In the early 2000s, the frenzy around capturing Osama bin Laden and punishing the Islamic world for 9/11 had major repercussions for the lives of innocent Middle Eastern civilians, in both the Middle East and America. The USA pursued largely fruitless and destructive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, while “Arab” looking communities in the US faced racism and hostility.
It is during this period that the fashion label Micheal and Hushi flourished, founded by Hushidar Mortezaie and Micheal Sears. Their designs blended Western punk, grunge and club kid aesthetics with Eastern calligraphy, textiles and pop culture motifs. Their first collection in 2001 premiered the fabulous keffiyeh dress, worn by Bella Hadid at Cannes in 2024. Their designs were popularized by everyone’s favourite Carrie Bradshaw on Sex and the City and the brand had a strong celebrity clientele.
Mortezaie is Iranian-American, so not Arab, but whose legacy is still deeply affected by US foreign policy: the repercussions of CIA-orchestrated coup that displaced nationalist leader Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953 plunged Iran into decades of political turmoil and repression, from monarchy to theocracy.
Now that the American political priority has turned from Afghanistan and Iraq to Palestine and Israel, it is only fitting that a Palestinian brand takes up the torch of bringing political satire to the fashion avant-garde. Founded by Omar Braika and Shoukry Lawrence, Trashy Clothing calls itself an “anti-luxury luxury fashion label,” that “questions Western geographies, power dynamics, and aesthetic norms that dominate the contemporary fashion industry.”
Some notable items in their shop are a halter top with a burning American flag and eagle, or a skirt emblazoned with dollar-bill that carries Monica Lewinski’s face on it alongside the Twin Towers and a splatter of blood. Evidently, Braika and Lawrence are drawn to subtlety. They also pay homage to Y2K pop princesses with tacky-chic graphic tees and Bedouin cultural clothing with dramatic elongated hoods.
Their latest AW25 collection is as ridiculous and scrappy as it is glorious. Aptly named “Humiliation Rituals” features two-dimensional steel armour that feels equally like a call to jihad and a tongue-in-cheek commentary on jihad. The collection’s first look is an imposing, spiky steel dome (or perhaps iron dome? Ba-dum tss) that is at once frightening but blinds and physically constrains the model wearing it.
Additionally, throughout the collection, the impractical “Saifak” sword-belt, cut out of a thin metal sheet, wraps around models like both a weapon and a trap. The flat cutout armour satirizes the flimsiness of Arab unity in the face of Israeli aggression. The Arab world has long abandoned the Palestinian cause, leaving occupied Palestinians to scrap together militias that become the scorn and ridicule of the West. Clunky hollow helmets and garments fashioned out of faux UN aid packages channel this makeshift energy of resistance with nobody by your side, any attempts at military resistance falling short.
The designers frame their AW25 collection in a more optimistic way: the flimsy armour speaks to the attempts at domination by the oppressor, which are destined to be exposed for their hollowness. “The collection captures the rituals imposed on the powerless and the ways in which power humiliates itself in its attempts to dominate. Borders tighten, yet resistance grows. Censorship escalates, yet history persists… AW25 dissects these contradictions, translating them into garments that embody both the submission of the powerful and the defiance of the oppressed,” reads their artist statement.
Trashy Clothing thrives in the double-sided space of the politically oppressed; a space that teeters between ironic cynicism and brave, fighting optimism. Either way, its couture and commentary are both razor-sharp.
Milena Pappalardo is a writer and artist based in Montreal and Toronto. She completed her Hon. Bachelor in Political Science at the University of Toronto. She loves to write about the political and psychoanalytic undercurrents of fashion, art and culture.