A Palestinian fashion designer says she nearly closed down her fashion brand until Olivia Rodrigo stepped in.
In a new interview, designer Yasmeen Mjalli told Vogue Arabia that her brand Nöl Collective, founded in 2020, almost exclusively imported natural fibers to create their clothes. She recalled the numerous challenges and hardships of creating new pieces in the West Bank.
Mjalli told the magazine she once ordered a shipment of naturally dyed handwoven wool for the brand’s autumn collection, only for it to have been held and ultimately destroyed by Israeli customs. She said she made an attempt to source replacement fabric in Jerusalem, but her efforts were thwarted due to the army closing down roads out of Ramallah.
“I was genuinely like, maybe we should stop, maybe this is our last effort. I was just so tired,” Mjalli said.
Rodrigo then placed a commission for a dress to wear at her inaugural Daisy Chain Fields Music Festival, something Mjalli likened to “divine intervention.”
“Obstacles are always going to be there, but if you can adapt you will be rewarded. I rise and I rise and I rise,” Mjalli said.
Mjalli said she had “less than a week” to make the dress and was able to secure raw silk fiber in baby pink in Ramallah with the help of a colleague.
She also told Vogue Arabia that when the dress was completed, Mjalli realized that no courier in the area could ship the dress to California in time for the late-August festival, until she miraculously was able to get it into the hands of “two strangers” who packed it into their luggage and flew it out to Los Angeles.
Rodrigo donned the baby pink at the Daisy Chain Fields festival at Irivine, California on August 29. Per its website, the festival’s net proceeds are “directed toward nonprofit organizations dedicated to advancing and advocating for women and girls.”
“Fashion is political no matter where you are. We’re still here,” Mjalli said. “We’re still here, we have not been forgotten.”
