This unique endeavor was realized by international Iraqi fashion designer and author Nihad Al-Samarrai, who adapted Shamma’s artworks into an exclusive fashion collection. The project will debut with a series of runway shows, beginning in a palace on The World Islands—a man-made archipelago in the United Arab Emirates—followed by showcases in New Alamein (Egypt), Paris, Milan, London, and many other global capitals, with distinguished guests from diverse fields in attendance.
Nihad Al-Samarrai comes from a prominent cultural and artistic Iraqi family. Her father, Wathiq Al-Samarrai, was a pioneering figure in Emirati theatre since the early 1960s, as well as a renowned architect. Nihad herself is an acclaimed designer and author, with several published works, and she is also set to star in a major upcoming artistic project.
This fashion event represents a groundbreaking experience in the Arab world, and likely the first of its kind globally: an entire fashion show derived solely from the artworks of a single artist. Seventy paintings reimagined into seventy dresses, celebrating color as life, movement, and culture.
The show embodies a visual fusion of multiple cultures—from Arab to Indian, Japanese, Kurdish, and more—interwoven by the universal language of color as a humanistic and aesthetic bridge that transcends borders.
What makes this project truly unique is that, for the first time, an entire fashion collection is based exclusively on the works of a single painter. The result is not merely a fashion show, but a new consciousness in the globalization of art, expanding the function of the painting beyond the canvas. Clothing here becomes a medium to reflect the essence of women, honoring their cultural and human value through wearable art.
