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Im-Mortal Magenta
The Colour that Doesn’t Exist
My name is Ayham Hassan. I’m a Palestinian fashion design student based in London and Ramallah. My work is deeply rooted in my personal experiences growing up in the West Bank and is approached through a critical and analytical lens. I am dedicated to challenging and reshaping my reality through the expressive medium of fashion, drawing inspiration from the social customs and evolving culture in my city. Focusing on exploring the rich craftsmanship in Palestine, with a particular emphasis on tailoring, textiles, and draping. I actively collaborate with local artisans to incorporate their traditional techniques and expertise into my design and production process. By doing so, I aim to contribute to the preservation of Palestinian crafts and enhance the overall production cycle in my country, ensuring that these invaluable skills and traditions do not disappear, especially in the fast- evolving world we live in.
The unique aesthetic of my work is deeply influenced by the environment in which I was raised, characterized by a raw, primal, visceral, and earthy quality. This aesthetic is a reflection of the challenges I faced growing up under Israeli military occupation. To me, fashion is not simply a form of self-expression; it is a means of protection, at times from societal pressures, and always from the harsh realities of military occupation.
I firmly believe in the transformative power of design as a force for positive change and progress. Through my work, I seek to disrupt the fabric of constructed life in my community, prompting individuals to confront the pressing issues within Arab and Palestinian societies. By building upon traditional techniques and infusing them with innovative and sustainable production methods, I am committed to elevating design and industrial independence in Palestine and the Levant area. Additionally, I aspire to integrate the often-overlooked Palestinian identity into the global fashion industry.
إنهاليستثوبًاأخلعهاليوم،بلجلًداأمزقهبيد ّي.ولاهي فكرة أتركها ورائي، بل قلبًا حلو بالجوع والعطش
“It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands. Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but a heart made sweet with hunger and thirst.”
— Khalil Gibran, The Prophet (1923).
I have developed a collection that powerfully showcases my conceptual process for each look, utilizing primarily deadstock materials and end-of-stock leather skins. My selection includes an array of soft silk chiffon, woven silks, and vibrant shades of magenta. I have incorporated silk organza, rubber bands, faux leather cords, and knitted wool from Palestine. Additionally, my materials feature tulles, paper silks, metal embellishments, pleated paper, and hand-stitched woven cotton from Palestine, all contributing to a distinctive and impactful aesthetic.
Firstly, I confront the issue of cultural sustainability against the backdrop of the horrific genocide occurring in Gaza and the West Bank. My work is deeply inspired by the Magenta weaving technique and cross-stitch embroidery, which have cultural roots in the city of Majdal in Gaza. Regrettably, the last family practicing these traditional crafts faces severe intimidation from Israeli forces, with some members displaced to Egypt. Through the use of symbolic color and powerful motifs, I assertively document and celebrate the uniqueness of this heritage in every look of my graduate collection.
Secondly, I take a firm stance on environmental sustainability in the construction of my pieces. I have developed innovative zero-waste cutting techniques for each look, focusing intently on utilizing deadstock materials and leftover leather skins. My project has garnered sponsorship from Last Yarn Fabrics and support during my placement at Maison Givenchy. Together with my mother, I have crafted a wool knit scarf using wool sourced from local Palestinian shops, all while operating within a reparative production cycle. Furthermore, I proudly collaborated with eight exceptionally skilled female artisans specializing in cross-stitch embroidery; for them, this craft is a vital source of income for their households. In essence, my graduate collection is a powerful celebration of creativity and craft preservation from my hometown. It unapologetically addresses the devastating effects of genocide and war on the survival of a vibrant culture.
Incorporating my identity into my work is not just important; it is essential. I am committed to confronting socio-political issues within the fashion landscape and raising critical awareness of the industry’s environmental impacts. Through my designs, I will deliver bold statements that inspire change, foster meaningful dialogue, and promote a more thoughtful and responsible approach to fashion. My aim is to craft pieces that not only enhance personal expression but also challenge the status quo and elevate our collective voice.
CÉLINE: You moved to London four years ago to follow your dream. What was your dream?
AYHAM: My dream was always fashion. I’m fascinated by the incredible designers in London, like McQueen and Galliano. In Ramallah, there was not much of a scene. I started studying design at Birzeit University in Ramallah, and met the most incredible artists, like Amer Shomali and Omar Joseph Nasser Khoury (?). I was so privileged and honored to be taught by them. I ultimately realized that I wanted to have a career in fashion, and the goal became CSM (Central Saint Martins in London).
CÉLINE: How was the process to apply?
AYHAM: It was insane. It was literally like doing the impossible. But I applied, and got in. Then I had to face the complications of going and getting funded. At that time, I had incredible mentorship from Nol Collective (an intersectional feminist & political fashion collective out of Palestine) who were incredibly supportive. However, unfortunately, the government in Palestine does not acknowledge fashion as a serious topic, like art… There is an amazing art scene in Palestine. Just not much fashion. So, I started doing crowdfunding. The crowdfunding got picked up by people at Dazed (digital magazine - dazeddigital.com), Bella Hadid, and a lot of people in the industry, who shared it on Instagram. It was so humbling… The al-Quds al-taw’am (?) made Palestine kind of mainstream on Instagram. There is an interesting evolution in terms of what resistance is and how to communicate what we are fighting for and how to communicate our ideas on social media. Emma Davidson (Fashion Features Director at Dazed Media) wrote an article in Dazed that literally changed my life in one night. I got all my funding sorted out, and I got my sponsorship. Emma called me and said, “Prepare yourself… make sure you have an umbrella. London is rainy.”
CÉLINE: Your recent collection went viral, and it was in every single news outlet. I was so proud to see it… from GQ to Vogue to literally, everywhere. How was it for you to put out a collection? It’s so personal. Tell us a little bit about the process behind it, and the work in Palestine, the embroidery, the work with the oversized fabrics. Tell me about how you built this collection, and what it means to you.
AYHAM: At that time, with the genocide in Gaza and the effect of that in the West Bank and in the occupied Palestinian territories in the north, it was so insanely tough and difficult… We grew up with our families, our grandparents telling us horrific stories. And there’s so little documentation of what happened during the Nakba, and the Naksa, the Intifadas, and everything connected to Palestinian resistance. The late Ottoman Empire also fucked up the situation and made it possible for Israel to come about. I was studying and watching documentaries, listening to stories. What happened in Gaza happened before, and it’s happening again. And even worse. I was in shock. I was in mourning, and huge suffering, and I didn’t understand how to actually support the resistance other than posting and sharing and going to protests with my friends…
I’m in fashion, I’m a creator. I have a vision, and I have an identity that I want to share with the world. And I was aware that I needed to do something. I needed to reflect on my emotions and process everything. It was so tough to do this at UAL (University of the Arts London). Unfortunately, the show was sponsored by L’Oreal, which is complicit in the genocide. UAL is sponsored by a lot of companies that are complicit. It was really tough. But thank God the staff members and my tutors, all of them, reached out and reminded me that I was entitled to speak out. This collection, I’m not going to lie, was created in the context of being at CSM in London, but it was unapologetically about Palestine.
I’m afraid for my family, my friends, my loved ones, in Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine. It was a terrifying time, and it still is a terrifying time. It’s insane. I needed to address this reality. I could not just look through the archives of incredible designers from the ‘50s and ‘60s. I had to address what was (and is) happening to my country. I did months of research in Palestine. I was able to go to Palestine in the summer before I started my collection. I spent months looking at archives, at imagery. I learned how people were forced to leave their countries and sent to refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon. I was looking at all of this, and I was really overwhelmed. I thought, how am I going to approach this? It was the quest for liberation and the reality of genocide. I wanted to look at the history of Gaza. I wanted to understand the power and resilience behind it. And it clicked for me, the magenta color. It looked like a symbol of resilience, a symbol of joy in the face of suffering and the horrific things that people were going through. It’s a color of beauty, it’s a color that demands, “Look at me. I’m here!” This is what Gaza is for me, and this is how I experienced it from the West Bank.
CÉLINE: Where did you start? Was the tatreez (Arabic word for Palestinian embroidery) on your work done in Palestine?
AYHAM: Yes. Because I grew up in Ramallah, I was able to connect with a network of embroiderers who are in the villages near Ramallah and Jerusalem. I’d worked with them before on one of my samples. And I was like, let me go back to that. It was a very complicated technique to develop in a short period of time. I used the embroidery, but I applied it maximally. I changed the sizing, the scale, the colors, and the placement of it. The embroidery was done by hand by eight women who, incredibly, used images I sent them to work from. They picked up my changes immediately. And of course, my mom and my aunties, my friends, and my neighbors were also checking with them and working with them. So that was beautiful, and it was really important for me, because I wanted my textiles to come from Palestine, I wanted them to have the feel of Palestinian hands. Their resilience. This is how we fight back.
The day of the show was so special. I had Sharon Rose, an incredible friend of mine, who came from Haifa to be part of it. My first model was Palestinian as well, from Ramallah. Sadly, my family could not come, but it was really interesting to meet the people who were able to be there. However, unfortunately, the school invited a designer who had served in the Israeli military to judge… And, we didn’t (and don’t) even know whether there will be a Palestine in two years, and that’s scary. That is very scary. This collection came from my reflection on that situation. Every look in the collection was specifically referenced with keywords. It told a very strong story, and the magenta was really striking. One of the pieces was a net that my mom knitted and embroidered by hand. I wanted her to be a part of it, and I wanted her to see it… we are in 2025, it’s not that complicated to travel from continent to continent, but this is how difficult it is in Palestine. You cannot actually travel easily. You have to go to Jordan. You have to cross all these checkpoints.
The Ottoman Empire made sure to kill the industries and starve the people who worked with silk in Lebanon. There’s a huge story about mulberry trees, silk, and the famine that the Ottoman Empire caused, which severely impacted the Lebanese people. And similarly, in Syria… so, we became the ones to provide the silks. There is a connection through the fabrics and the colors and the threads between our countries and our nations… People say I’m Palestinian, but I’m probably more Lebanese, more Syrian. We are all of the same ethnic makeup. When we look at the collection, we see this cry, this loud scream, this creative explosion of, look at me, look at me, I’m here… and it’s extremely moving. I think that’s why it’s touching a lot of people, and it’s going viral, because people need to see this in a way that is creative. It’s a counterbalance in such a powerful way to all the horror we are seeing.
Fashion is art to me. This virality has shown me that my work resonates on so many levels. It’s fashion, it’s design, it’s an explosion of creativity, and passion, and gender and sexuality expression. My collection is addressing the reality of genocide, the quest for liberation, and the inevitability of liberation. This is a collective liberation movement. It’s our right to scream and say, this is not okay! It is a genocide. It’s ethnic cleansing. During the show, they closed every door, they locked everything, they had police officers. My models were like, we have to do something. We have to carry signs. We have to show that this is not okay. My models, all of them, carried signs that said, “Boycott L’Oreal,” and “Free Palestine.” It was not even my suggestion. It was the models who decided to do this.
CÉLINE: Do you think your brand is punk? Do you fall in the punk lineage?
AYHAM: Maybe in the spirit of punk… it’s rebellious. We are living in very uncertain times in all industries. It’s very scary. I said everything I wanted. But unfortunately, they always tone it down. Change it a little bit. Of course, the staff are incredible and very pro-Palestinian, all of them, the tutors, students, everyone is… but the whole UAL multinational company… you just realize you don’t matter to anyone. They had a course fees reduction for Ukrainian students because they are going through the war, and I, as a Palestinian, didn’t receive any reduction. That was a huge what’s the deal? And why the hell do we have to have funding from L’Oreal to do a show to exhibit the most incredibly talented students, but we are living in a time if you’re not in that show, you’re not going to be shared. If you’re not posted, you’re not going to get a job. If you’re not shared, people are not seeing your work, and we deserve to show our work. You know, we worked super hard on it…
CÉLINE: What’s next for you? Where are you headed?
AYHAM: The ultimate goal is to open my own collective and work with students, work with designers and freelancers and artists in Palestine, in Lebanon and Syria, and Jordan, and hopefully make my statement in the industry. I have so much to say. I’m experiencing a genocide. My family is in Palestine. I am from Ramallah. I’m seeing all these stories, and at the same time, I have to be inspired. I have to be creative. I have to be on my best behavior, to be every day doing my best work. And I have to use different words to speak to people, and I have to approach it differently and humbly tone down. So which one? If it’s about being Palestinian, yes, it is about being Palestinian, about having to discuss really harsh topics in a fashion context. And this is what I’m providing to the industry. This is what I’m going to do every single season, every single year. This is what I’m going to speak about. This is what I’m going to approach.
CÉLINE: If you were to work at a big house, at a traditional fashion house, is there one you would want to be a part of?
AYHAM: Unfortunately, everything is complicit with everything horrible that I don’t stand for. And that’s why I have to do my own thing. Of course, I would love to work with Givenchy and Dior… You’re talking about years and years and years of craft, beautiful work, talented people, and the money to do the absolute best work. Unfortunately, I realized that I don’t have a space in that place because they are complicit. That’s why it is really important for me to do my own thing. I have so much to say on every topic, not just Palestine.
{
"article":
{
"title" : "Im-Mortal Magenta: The Colour that Doesn’t Exist",
"author" : "Ayham Hassan",
"category" : "",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/ayham-hassan",
"date" : "2025-09-08 10:05:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/AYHAM-HASSAN-LOOK8.jpg",
"excerpt" : "",
"content" : "My name is Ayham Hassan. I’m a Palestinian fashion design student based in London and Ramallah. My work is deeply rooted in my personal experiences growing up in the West Bank and is approached through a critical and analytical lens. I am dedicated to challenging and reshaping my reality through the expressive medium of fashion, drawing inspiration from the social customs and evolving culture in my city. Focusing on exploring the rich craftsmanship in Palestine, with a particular emphasis on tailoring, textiles, and draping. I actively collaborate with local artisans to incorporate their traditional techniques and expertise into my design and production process. By doing so, I aim to contribute to the preservation of Palestinian crafts and enhance the overall production cycle in my country, ensuring that these invaluable skills and traditions do not disappear, especially in the fast- evolving world we live in.The unique aesthetic of my work is deeply influenced by the environment in which I was raised, characterized by a raw, primal, visceral, and earthy quality. This aesthetic is a reflection of the challenges I faced growing up under Israeli military occupation. To me, fashion is not simply a form of self-expression; it is a means of protection, at times from societal pressures, and always from the harsh realities of military occupation.I firmly believe in the transformative power of design as a force for positive change and progress. Through my work, I seek to disrupt the fabric of constructed life in my community, prompting individuals to confront the pressing issues within Arab and Palestinian societies. By building upon traditional techniques and infusing them with innovative and sustainable production methods, I am committed to elevating design and industrial independence in Palestine and the Levant area. Additionally, I aspire to integrate the often-overlooked Palestinian identity into the global fashion industry. إنهاليستثوبًاأخلعهاليوم،بلجلًداأمزقهبيد ّي.ولاهي فكرة أتركها ورائي، بل قلبًا حلو بالجوع والعطش “It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands. Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but a heart made sweet with hunger and thirst.”— Khalil Gibran, The Prophet (1923).I have developed a collection that powerfully showcases my conceptual process for each look, utilizing primarily deadstock materials and end-of-stock leather skins. My selection includes an array of soft silk chiffon, woven silks, and vibrant shades of magenta. I have incorporated silk organza, rubber bands, faux leather cords, and knitted wool from Palestine. Additionally, my materials feature tulles, paper silks, metal embellishments, pleated paper, and hand-stitched woven cotton from Palestine, all contributing to a distinctive and impactful aesthetic.Firstly, I confront the issue of cultural sustainability against the backdrop of the horrific genocide occurring in Gaza and the West Bank. My work is deeply inspired by the Magenta weaving technique and cross-stitch embroidery, which have cultural roots in the city of Majdal in Gaza. Regrettably, the last family practicing these traditional crafts faces severe intimidation from Israeli forces, with some members displaced to Egypt. Through the use of symbolic color and powerful motifs, I assertively document and celebrate the uniqueness of this heritage in every look of my graduate collection.Secondly, I take a firm stance on environmental sustainability in the construction of my pieces. I have developed innovative zero-waste cutting techniques for each look, focusing intently on utilizing deadstock materials and leftover leather skins. My project has garnered sponsorship from Last Yarn Fabrics and support during my placement at Maison Givenchy. Together with my mother, I have crafted a wool knit scarf using wool sourced from local Palestinian shops, all while operating within a reparative production cycle. Furthermore, I proudly collaborated with eight exceptionally skilled female artisans specializing in cross-stitch embroidery; for them, this craft is a vital source of income for their households. In essence, my graduate collection is a powerful celebration of creativity and craft preservation from my hometown. It unapologetically addresses the devastating effects of genocide and war on the survival of a vibrant culture.Incorporating my identity into my work is not just important; it is essential. I am committed to confronting socio-political issues within the fashion landscape and raising critical awareness of the industry’s environmental impacts. Through my designs, I will deliver bold statements that inspire change, foster meaningful dialogue, and promote a more thoughtful and responsible approach to fashion. My aim is to craft pieces that not only enhance personal expression but also challenge the status quo and elevate our collective voice.CÉLINE: You moved to London four years ago to follow your dream. What was your dream?AYHAM: My dream was always fashion. I’m fascinated by the incredible designers in London, like McQueen and Galliano. In Ramallah, there was not much of a scene. I started studying design at Birzeit University in Ramallah, and met the most incredible artists, like Amer Shomali and Omar Joseph Nasser Khoury (?). I was so privileged and honored to be taught by them. I ultimately realized that I wanted to have a career in fashion, and the goal became CSM (Central Saint Martins in London).CÉLINE: How was the process to apply?AYHAM: It was insane. It was literally like doing the impossible. But I applied, and got in. Then I had to face the complications of going and getting funded. At that time, I had incredible mentorship from Nol Collective (an intersectional feminist & political fashion collective out of Palestine) who were incredibly supportive. However, unfortunately, the government in Palestine does not acknowledge fashion as a serious topic, like art… There is an amazing art scene in Palestine. Just not much fashion. So, I started doing crowdfunding. The crowdfunding got picked up by people at Dazed (digital magazine - dazeddigital.com), Bella Hadid, and a lot of people in the industry, who shared it on Instagram. It was so humbling… The al-Quds al-taw’am (?) made Palestine kind of mainstream on Instagram. There is an interesting evolution in terms of what resistance is and how to communicate what we are fighting for and how to communicate our ideas on social media. Emma Davidson (Fashion Features Director at Dazed Media) wrote an article in Dazed that literally changed my life in one night. I got all my funding sorted out, and I got my sponsorship. Emma called me and said, “Prepare yourself… make sure you have an umbrella. London is rainy.”CÉLINE: Your recent collection went viral, and it was in every single news outlet. I was so proud to see it… from GQ to Vogue to literally, everywhere. How was it for you to put out a collection? It’s so personal. Tell us a little bit about the process behind it, and the work in Palestine, the embroidery, the work with the oversized fabrics. Tell me about how you built this collection, and what it means to you.AYHAM: At that time, with the genocide in Gaza and the effect of that in the West Bank and in the occupied Palestinian territories in the north, it was so insanely tough and difficult… We grew up with our families, our grandparents telling us horrific stories. And there’s so little documentation of what happened during the Nakba, and the Naksa, the Intifadas, and everything connected to Palestinian resistance. The late Ottoman Empire also fucked up the situation and made it possible for Israel to come about. I was studying and watching documentaries, listening to stories. What happened in Gaza happened before, and it’s happening again. And even worse. I was in shock. I was in mourning, and huge suffering, and I didn’t understand how to actually support the resistance other than posting and sharing and going to protests with my friends…I’m in fashion, I’m a creator. I have a vision, and I have an identity that I want to share with the world. And I was aware that I needed to do something. I needed to reflect on my emotions and process everything. It was so tough to do this at UAL (University of the Arts London). Unfortunately, the show was sponsored by L’Oreal, which is complicit in the genocide. UAL is sponsored by a lot of companies that are complicit. It was really tough. But thank God the staff members and my tutors, all of them, reached out and reminded me that I was entitled to speak out. This collection, I’m not going to lie, was created in the context of being at CSM in London, but it was unapologetically about Palestine.I’m afraid for my family, my friends, my loved ones, in Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine. It was a terrifying time, and it still is a terrifying time. It’s insane. I needed to address this reality. I could not just look through the archives of incredible designers from the ‘50s and ‘60s. I had to address what was (and is) happening to my country. I did months of research in Palestine. I was able to go to Palestine in the summer before I started my collection. I spent months looking at archives, at imagery. I learned how people were forced to leave their countries and sent to refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon. I was looking at all of this, and I was really overwhelmed. I thought, how am I going to approach this? It was the quest for liberation and the reality of genocide. I wanted to look at the history of Gaza. I wanted to understand the power and resilience behind it. And it clicked for me, the magenta color. It looked like a symbol of resilience, a symbol of joy in the face of suffering and the horrific things that people were going through. It’s a color of beauty, it’s a color that demands, “Look at me. I’m here!” This is what Gaza is for me, and this is how I experienced it from the West Bank.CÉLINE: Where did you start? Was the tatreez (Arabic word for Palestinian embroidery) on your work done in Palestine?AYHAM: Yes. Because I grew up in Ramallah, I was able to connect with a network of embroiderers who are in the villages near Ramallah and Jerusalem. I’d worked with them before on one of my samples. And I was like, let me go back to that. It was a very complicated technique to develop in a short period of time. I used the embroidery, but I applied it maximally. I changed the sizing, the scale, the colors, and the placement of it. The embroidery was done by hand by eight women who, incredibly, used images I sent them to work from. They picked up my changes immediately. And of course, my mom and my aunties, my friends, and my neighbors were also checking with them and working with them. So that was beautiful, and it was really important for me, because I wanted my textiles to come from Palestine, I wanted them to have the feel of Palestinian hands. Their resilience. This is how we fight back.The day of the show was so special. I had Sharon Rose, an incredible friend of mine, who came from Haifa to be part of it. My first model was Palestinian as well, from Ramallah. Sadly, my family could not come, but it was really interesting to meet the people who were able to be there. However, unfortunately, the school invited a designer who had served in the Israeli military to judge… And, we didn’t (and don’t) even know whether there will be a Palestine in two years, and that’s scary. That is very scary. This collection came from my reflection on that situation. Every look in the collection was specifically referenced with keywords. It told a very strong story, and the magenta was really striking. One of the pieces was a net that my mom knitted and embroidered by hand. I wanted her to be a part of it, and I wanted her to see it… we are in 2025, it’s not that complicated to travel from continent to continent, but this is how difficult it is in Palestine. You cannot actually travel easily. You have to go to Jordan. You have to cross all these checkpoints.The Ottoman Empire made sure to kill the industries and starve the people who worked with silk in Lebanon. There’s a huge story about mulberry trees, silk, and the famine that the Ottoman Empire caused, which severely impacted the Lebanese people. And similarly, in Syria… so, we became the ones to provide the silks. There is a connection through the fabrics and the colors and the threads between our countries and our nations… People say I’m Palestinian, but I’m probably more Lebanese, more Syrian. We are all of the same ethnic makeup. When we look at the collection, we see this cry, this loud scream, this creative explosion of, look at me, look at me, I’m here… and it’s extremely moving. I think that’s why it’s touching a lot of people, and it’s going viral, because people need to see this in a way that is creative. It’s a counterbalance in such a powerful way to all the horror we are seeing.Fashion is art to me. This virality has shown me that my work resonates on so many levels. It’s fashion, it’s design, it’s an explosion of creativity, and passion, and gender and sexuality expression. My collection is addressing the reality of genocide, the quest for liberation, and the inevitability of liberation. This is a collective liberation movement. It’s our right to scream and say, this is not okay! It is a genocide. It’s ethnic cleansing. During the show, they closed every door, they locked everything, they had police officers. My models were like, we have to do something. We have to carry signs. We have to show that this is not okay. My models, all of them, carried signs that said, “Boycott L’Oreal,” and “Free Palestine.” It was not even my suggestion. It was the models who decided to do this.CÉLINE: Do you think your brand is punk? Do you fall in the punk lineage?AYHAM: Maybe in the spirit of punk… it’s rebellious. We are living in very uncertain times in all industries. It’s very scary. I said everything I wanted. But unfortunately, they always tone it down. Change it a little bit. Of course, the staff are incredible and very pro-Palestinian, all of them, the tutors, students, everyone is… but the whole UAL multinational company… you just realize you don’t matter to anyone. They had a course fees reduction for Ukrainian students because they are going through the war, and I, as a Palestinian, didn’t receive any reduction. That was a huge what’s the deal? And why the hell do we have to have funding from L’Oreal to do a show to exhibit the most incredibly talented students, but we are living in a time if you’re not in that show, you’re not going to be shared. If you’re not posted, you’re not going to get a job. If you’re not shared, people are not seeing your work, and we deserve to show our work. You know, we worked super hard on it…CÉLINE: What’s next for you? Where are you headed?AYHAM: The ultimate goal is to open my own collective and work with students, work with designers and freelancers and artists in Palestine, in Lebanon and Syria, and Jordan, and hopefully make my statement in the industry. I have so much to say. I’m experiencing a genocide. My family is in Palestine. I am from Ramallah. I’m seeing all these stories, and at the same time, I have to be inspired. I have to be creative. I have to be on my best behavior, to be every day doing my best work. And I have to use different words to speak to people, and I have to approach it differently and humbly tone down. So which one? If it’s about being Palestinian, yes, it is about being Palestinian, about having to discuss really harsh topics in a fashion context. And this is what I’m providing to the industry. This is what I’m going to do every single season, every single year. This is what I’m going to speak about. This is what I’m going to approach.CÉLINE: If you were to work at a big house, at a traditional fashion house, is there one you would want to be a part of?AYHAM: Unfortunately, everything is complicit with everything horrible that I don’t stand for. And that’s why I have to do my own thing. Of course, I would love to work with Givenchy and Dior… You’re talking about years and years and years of craft, beautiful work, talented people, and the money to do the absolute best work. Unfortunately, I realized that I don’t have a space in that place because they are complicit. That’s why it is really important for me to do my own thing. I have so much to say on every topic, not just Palestine."
}
,
"relatedposts": [
{
"title" : "Couture in Paris, Cuts at the 'Post'",
"author" : "Louis Pisano",
"category" : "essay",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/bezos-sanchez-paris-couture-week-wapo-layoffs",
"date" : "2026-02-02 10:49:00 -0500",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/Cover_EIP_Bezos_Sanchez_Pisano.jpg",
"excerpt" : "The Cruel Irony of the Bezos-Sánchez Empire",
"content" : "The Cruel Irony of the Bezos-Sánchez EmpireLate on January 25, as snow dusted Washington, about 60 foreign correspondents at The Washington Post hit send on an email that felt like a last stand. They had dodged gunfire in Ukraine, documented Iran’s water crises and protester crackdowns, risked sources’ lives in gang territories. Now they faced their own existential threat: rumors of up to 300 company-wide layoffs, with foreign desks, sports, metro, and arts likely gutted. Their collective letter to owner Jeff Bezos was direct, almost pleading.“Robust, powerful foreign coverage is essential to The Washington Post’s brand and its future success in whatever form the paper takes moving forward,” they wrote. “We urge you to consider how the proposed layoffs will certainly lead us first to irrelevance, not the shared success that remains attainable.” They offered flexibility on costs but drew a line: slashing overseas reporting in Trump’s second term, amid global flashpoints, would hollow out the institution they had built.Whether Bezos opened that email remains unclear. As of this writing, he has not publicly responded to it. In fact, Bezos was 4,000 miles away, strolling hand-in-hand with Lauren Sánchez Bezos into Schiaparelli’s Haute Couture show in Paris. Flashbulbs popped as they arrived, Sánchez in a blood red skirt suit from the house and a white crocodile bag. Hours on, she switched to a steel-blue-gray vintage Dior pencil-skirt suit, its enormous fur collar evoking a mob wife, for Jonathan Anderson’s couture debut with the house.The two didn’t just sit front row, either. Backstage at Dior, Bezos and Sánchez posed with Anderson and LVMH CEO Delphine Arnault. Sánchez lunched with Anna Wintour at The Ritz and was allegedly dressed by Law Roach, the “image architect” behind Zendaya’s accession to fashion darling, who once declared fashion’s power to challenge norms and amplify the marginalized. Roach reshared Sánchez’s Instagram stories, crediting the vintage Dior; later, they toured Schiaparelli’s atelier together. The partnership felt sudden and loaded.Back in D.C., the newsroom simmered. Staffers posted on X under #SaveThePost, Yeganeh Torbati recounting government violence against protesters, Loveday Morris describing blasts rattling windows and the mortal risks to sources, tagging Bezos directly in urgent appeals. In a guild-prompted twist meant to amplify the message, the Washington-Baltimore News Guild encouraged tagging even Lauren Sánchez, though not every reporter followed through. The betrayal stung deeper after years of buyouts, a libertarian-tilted Opinions section, a rebranded mission (“Riveting Storytelling for All of America”) that rang corporate. Losses topped $100 million in 2024 and now the axe is hovering over desks that produced the scoops Bezos once praised when he bought the paper for $250 million in 2013. Now, Bezos parties on in Paris, his wife climbing fashion’s ranks.While the billionaires party, a profound unease is permeating the American media landscape, exacerbated by political shifts and technological disruptions that empower owners like Bezos to sideline core missions in favor of personal ventures. The press, once a vigilant watchdog against authority, now frequently finds itself complicit with power structures, buckling under misinformation, partisan censorship, and budgetary constraints that stifle investigative depth. This dynamic deprives the public of the unflinching journalism that is capable of exposing foreign policy overreaches or everyday human struggle, amplified by economic slowdowns and subscription fatigue in an increasingly fragmented ecosystem. With eroding confidence driving audiences to social platforms, now eclipsing traditional TV and websites as the primary news source in the U.S., the fallout further deepens this public distrust.To be clear, fashion isn’t innocent in this. It loves to posture as progressive, touting body positivity, diversity, resistance as it’s relevant, but rolling out the red carpet for the ultra-rich when the checks clear, especially when the checks come from people whose fortunes are built on real harm. Once upon a time, you couldn’t simply buy your way into the Met Gala; invitations were curated by Wintour based on cultural relevance, creative influence, and a carefully guarded sense of who truly belonged in the room. That’s all over now. The Bezoses have turned every norm in fashion on its head, sponsoring the 2026 Met Gala (funding the event and reportedly influencing invites), making their debut as a couple in 2024, and now leveraging those ties to claim space in couture’s inner circles. Bezos and Sánchez’s couture jaunt is just the latest proof that fashion’s gates, once guarded by creativity and taste, now swing widest for raw wealth and access.Wintour lunches and their prominent sponsorship role in the Met Gala don’t help quell the whispers that Bezos is eyeing Condé Nast (Vogue, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker) as a “wedding gift” to Sánchez. Rumors denied yet persistent, revived by every Paris sighting.Not everyone in fashion is staying silent. Some insiders are pushing back hard against the normalization. Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, a longtime voice in the industry, posted bluntly on X: “The hyper normalization is doing my head in… keep your mouth shut about ICE if you’re mingling with them, seating them, dressing them. Accepting their cash.” She called out Amazon’s cloud systems as the backbone of DHS deportation operations and billions in government contracts that sustain what she called “Trump’s terror machine,” concluding that Bezos and Sánchez are at couture simply because they are rich—and their wealth comes from profoundly harming millions daily. “I feel crazy,” she wrote. While couture has always been a bastian of the uber-rich, Karefa-Johnson’s frustration underscores how even fashion’s own are starting to question the cost of that welcome.If that Conde-Nast deal ever materializes, the consequences would compound because control over fashion’s most influential titles would allow Bezos the opportunity to shape narratives around billionaires, soften coverage of labor abuses, environmental costs, or surveillance contracts. The same hand that funds AWS’s CIA contracts, DoD cloud deals, ICE enforcement tools, fossil-fuel operations, warehouse injuries, anti-union tactics, and small-business-crushing monopoly would quietly steer the stories about wealth and style. Already deferential to its biggest advertisers and attendees, fashion journalism would fold into the same closed loop, fusing tech dominance with cultural gatekeeping into one unassailable private empire—all of it ultimately bankrolling the yachts, the space joyrides with Katy Perry, the private-jet hops to couture shows and fashion influence, to polish an image that the Post’s own reporters once might have skewered.[x] It’s almost elegant the way one empire’s dirt gets laundered through another.It’s cruelly ironic how wide the gap between the risks assumed by WaPo correspondents tasked with holding power to account and the comfort with which their owner moves among the powerful in Paris actually is. Fashion has political power, as Roach once said. It can challenge and provoke. It can also resist. But when it courts figures like Bezos, whose empire thrives on the very inequalities it sometimes pretends to critique, it becomes another asset in his already enormous portfolio.But there is no challenge, no provocation. There is no major resistance. Instead, there’s champagne and constant disassociation. Somewhere between the clink of glasses and the photos, Bezos and his wife get a glow up while The Washington Post newsroom waits, knowing the cuts are coming but not yet here. No one is confused about what happened; this is simply how the trade now unfortunately works.Wealth drifts through media, fashion, culture, picking up prestige and shedding people along the way. Whether Bezos ever read the letter is beside the point. The stranger thing is how little anyone expects him, or anyone like him, to answer anymore."
}
,
{
"title" : "Why We Must Bring Disability into Immigrant Liberation",
"author" : "Conchita Hernandez Legorreta, Qudsiya Naqui",
"category" : "essays",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/disability-immigrant-liberation",
"date" : "2026-02-02 09:49:00 -0500",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/Disability-Immigration-Collage-Compressed.jpeg",
"excerpt" : "It is the only way to move toward collective liberation.",
"content" : "It is the only way to move toward collective liberation.A vertical digital collage in shades of orange, teal, and blue. In the background, a semi-transparent AAC communication device displays the text “I can help.” The top left shows a woman with a hearing aid in profile. On the right, a woman in a black headscarf gestures toward her ear. At the bottom, a woman and a child stand on a bed of large, realistic ice cubes; both are using white canes for the blind. Orange sparks float across the center, and the overall style is grainy, reminiscent of a Riso-printed protest zine. Illustration Credit: Jennifer White-JohnsonThe deadly surge of ICE agents in Minneapolis and across the country has wreaked havoc across communities, with particularly dangerous consequences for disabled people. In one instance on January 15, 2026, a woman in Minneapolis, Aliya Rahman, was pulled from her car and into an ICE vehicle, despite telling the ICE agents that she was on her way to a doctor’s appointment. The woman explained that she was autistic and needed accommodations, which the ICE agents readily ignored.The reentrenchment of ableism in Trump 2.0 is everywhere. In July 2025, for example, the president issued an executive order, “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets,” which seeks to overturn decades of progress for disabled people. The “R- word,” a slur against people with cognitive disabilities and a word that so many activists fought to eliminate from our daily lexicon, is back in full force. And for many immigrants with disabilities, the cultural landscape is more treacherous than ever: since Trump’s ascent, his administration has continued to double down on a centuries-old legacy of ableism and maltreatment of disabled immigrants. Most recently, the State Department announced that it will suspend the processing of immigrant visas from 75 countries because their citizens are collectively deemed likely to become reliant on public assistance if admitted into the U.S. This not only reflects our government’s racist and xenophobic approach to immigration—it is also a clear manifestation of its contempt for disabled people, or anyone perceived as unable to produce the labor that drives American capitalism.This is why conversations about disability must be central to the movement for immigrant justice. When we create resources and protections for the most marginalized, we move closer to liberation for all immigrant communities.The term “no le digas a nadie” or “do not tell anyone” is a phrase many immigrants know and take to heart. It speaks to the fear that, if you tell the wrong person, your life and your family’s can be turned upside down. This is felt tenfold by disabled immigrants: Today, an estimated 1 in 4 Americans has a disability. With over 15.2 million immigrants in the United States, a large portion may have disabilities, even if they do not identify as having one. Disability is often stigmatized, leading people to hide their conditions or have less access to information and services. Disability is also the only minority group that anyone can join at any time, whether from birth, through chronic illness, or accident. What’s more, many people become disabled as they travel long distances to cross borders. The immigration system itself creates disability in the violence of enforcement and the terrible conditions of immigrant detention.As a formerly undocumented blind educator and a blind law professor who has spent the past 15 years advocating for immigrant and disability justice, we understand firsthand the added layer that comes with being disabled, in addition to being a target of immigration enforcement. One of us (Conchita) remembers feeling anxious to go outside while growing up undocumented, for fear of having any type of encounter with law enforcement. She and her family were terrified of disclosing any information to the wrong person who might report them to immigration officials. As a result, Conchita hid her immigration and disability status from most people. This led to a lack of information and access to resources, as well as exclusion from a community that could have supported her.Conchita’s story is not unique. We have heard countless accounts of disabled immigrants being arrested and detained without basic access to the tools they need to communicate and defend themselves. In November 2025, ICE detained a blind man in New York and denied him access to his white cane and a text-to-speech app on his phone that he needed in order to read legal documents. A few months before that, in June, a Deaf man lawfully present in the U.S. was arrested in Los Angeles, and even though he signaled to the ICE agents that he could not speak, he was thrown into a vehicle and sent to a detention center without any communication about why he was being detained. ICE took away his phone when he attempted to communicate, and when he arrived at the detention facility in El Paso, Texas, he was provided with documents in Spanish, a language he cannot read. In all of these situations, lack of accessibility led to needless incarceration and family separation without fair due process.But despite this struggle, ableism, disability, and accessibility are rarely discussed in the fight for immigrant justice. Activists on the front lines of immigration work often do not understand the full scope of disability and its impact on people’s lives. Many immigration advocates tend to be on a shoestring budget and have told us, “We do not have the capacity right now” when we’ve asked to make immigration resources accessible, or to grow their understanding of disability rights laws and the lived experiences of disabled people. Not to mention, disabled lawyers and legal advocates are grossly underrepresented in their professions, and as a consequence, this perspective, including making critical legal information accessible to all, is not part of the conversation. For instance, videos that show how to confront ICE should include captions, transcripts, and audio descriptions, but rarely do.This became clear to us when we presented a “Know Your Rights” webinar to support disabled immigrants in August 2025, as ICE enforcement actions expanded across the country. To our surprise, over 150 people attended the webinar, including disabled immigrants and their allies concerned about how they would protect themselves if they encountered ICE. We received questions like, “What do I do if I’m blind and I’m presented with a paper warrant I can’t read?” or “What if ICE agents take my phone and I can’t signal to them that I’m deaf and need an interpreter?”What many people tend to forget is that when accessibility and inclusion are part of the conversation for any movement work, the result benefits everyone. We saw this during the COVID-19 pandemic, when immigration and disability rights advocates came together to challenge the detention of those at risk of severe illness or death using federal disability rights laws. This helped reduce transmission rates, reaffirm fair legal standards for all, and strengthen public health by giving everyone accessible vaccination information and even food resources. Designing a world and protections that help people with disabilities is just as crucial to our advocacy as organizing protests, defending individuals in deportation cases, and lobbying our lawmakers to support more humane immigration policies.Our plea to immigration advocates is that they make it a priority to understand the full extent of how immigration and disability justice intersect. They can do this by educating themselves on disability rights laws that apply in detention centers and when people come into contact with federal, state, and local law enforcement. Immigration advocates must also ensure that legal information and other educational content they produce are accessible to everyone.Above all, they must form coalitions with people with disabilities and incorporate their ideas into all advocacy efforts. Because our shared survival depends on the survival of every individual and community affected by this administration. Bringing disability into the immigrant struggle is the only way to move toward collective access, cross-movement solidarity, and collective liberation."
}
,
{
"title" : "Against Dictators and Intervention: Sahar Delijani on Iran",
"author" : "Sahar Delijani, Céline Semaan",
"category" : "interviews",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/sahar-delijani-on-iran",
"date" : "2026-02-01 16:53:00 -0500",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/2026_01_29_Sahar_Interview_1.jpg",
"excerpt" : "CÉLINE:These are very difficult times as we are watching what’s happening in Iran unfolding in such a rapid pace, there are numbers that are coming out in the news: first we saw a few thousand, then we saw 5000 reported on Democracy Now! and recently, we have gone from 30,000 to 45,000 people massacred in Iran. What is the latest that you’ve heard from your end, from Iranian sources?",
"content" : "CÉLINE:These are very difficult times as we are watching what’s happening in Iran unfolding in such a rapid pace, there are numbers that are coming out in the news: first we saw a few thousand, then we saw 5000 reported on Democracy Now! and recently, we have gone from 30,000 to 45,000 people massacred in Iran. What is the latest that you’ve heard from your end, from Iranian sources?SAHAR DELIJANI:I’m hearing the same numbers, I’ve heard anything from 20,000 to 30,000 to 40,000. It’s really hard to verify for the people on the ground and for people human rights organizations, even though I know that they’re working around the clock to be able to identify bodies, but the regime is really trying as much as it can to repress the information coming out. We are even hearing news of mass graves, of bodies that were just taken from the morgues and never seen again. We hear news of families that have been just going from morgue to morgue, station to station, hospital to hospital, looking for their loved ones, and they still haven’t found them.We hear news of doctors who were helping the wounded who are now imprisoned under the charge of collaborating with Israel or waging war against God, which is one of the charges that usually Islamic Republic uses to push for execution. Terrible news coming out from all these small towns, all these areas in Iran where thousands of people have been killed, and a lot of them with gunshot wounds at close range in their chest or their neck or their heads.So it’s an absolute to nightmare. I don’t even know what the right word is, but it’s one of the biggest slaughters of civil uprising we’ve ever seen in our recent history.CÉLINE:Thank you. And I know that now everyone is watching, holding their breath for what is potentially a US intervention. The situation is escalating. There are the people of Iran are facing their own government oppression, and they might be also under US bombs. Do you have any family members in Iran? How are you coping with the news, and what are the best ways to follow what’s happening now closely on the ground?SAHAR DELIJANI:Yes, I do have family and friends, and it’s just devastating that they are now sort of trapped between these two absolutely brutal forces. One is the Islamic Republic on the ground, just slaughtering its own people. And then you know, the threat of wars and bombs and the devastation that we know it will bring. The tragedy is immense. I don’t even have the right words to talk about it. Iranian people have worked so hard in the past 30-40 years to be able to build a democratic society, to be able to have freedom for everyone, for minorities, for women, for a society to be built on equality and justice.This isn’t the first time the Iranian people have been fighting against this regime — this has been a long, long fight, and I feel like it has reached a point of no return. We will not be the same people. I am not the same person as I was just a few days, few weeks back. And you know, this is also, in some ways, the story of our of our region. There’s just too much blood, too much violence, and there’s this open wound that had been in Iran since the 80s, with the mass executions of political prisoners, including my own family members, and that wound was still open, and now we have this we have this slaughter. Our region needs and deserves something more than wars or dictatorship. We deserve to be able to fight for what we want. We deserve to be able to live in safe societies, to live in dignity, to live in freedom, and the right to fight for it.CÉLINE:An attack on Iran is an attack on the region, on the Iranian people, first and foremost, but also has repercussions on the entire region. A lot of people think that the Iranian government is holding the Palestinian cause, and is the only force that has been against Israel. How is it looking like from your perspective, as someone who is understanding of the Palestinian cause and seeing what’s happening and unfolding today?SAHAR DELIJANI:I think any attack on any country in the region is an attack on the region. I don’t think this is only about valid for Iran. When Iraq was attacked, it was an attack on the region, when Afghanistan was attacked, when it was an attack on the region, all of our fates are intertwined, they’re not separate from each other. They’re not isolated. I do not believe that the Iranian regime has been fighting for the Palestinian cause. I believe that, yes, the Iranian regime is the enemy of Israel. That doesn’t mean that it has the Palestinian cause in its heart. It only means that it has its own geopolitical interest and advancements that it wants to push forward.It wants more power and more influence in the region. And it uses the Syrian civil war, it uses the opportunities it has in Iraq, and throughout the region, it’s only pushing forward its own agenda. I think that is very important to note also, because a country that has been torturing and killing its own people, how could it liberate another people?What does that liberation even look like when we talk about America bringing this rhetoric of liberation, why don’t we believe it? Because we know what it means, because we’ve seen it historically, and we also see what it does to its own people. If an American power that speaks of liberation for the Iranian does this to its own people—kills them in broad daylight, their shoots them in the face, in their car, or arrest protesters, abducts people. Same goes for Iran and Palestine. What kind of liberation does Iran have in mind for Palestine, if it’s killing its own people, if it’s repressing its own people?I believe that anti war movements, anti imperialist movements must go hand in hand with anti dictatorship movements and pro democracy movements. Otherwise, it’s just empty shells, it changes nothing for the people on the ground. We need to want the same things for everyone, we can’t pick and choose whose liberation we want or whose repression is okay for now, no one’s repression is okay. Because I think more everybody wants the same thing. We might have different ways of expressing it, but people want to live in dignity and safety and equality, right? Everybody wants that, so we need to listen to them, instead of imposing our own geopolitical agendas or our own interpretation of the region, without listening to the people living that reality.CÉLINE:Absolutely. How can a dictator that is also violating the rights of their own constituents and their own citizens in the United States, such as Donald Trump, want the best for Iranians? That’s where the cognitive dissonance happens online when we have members of the Iranian diaspora who are calling for US intervention, and in that same breath, harassing or attacking or creating a campaign against anyone who is raising a flag that US intervention might not lead to liberation for Iranian people. US intervention has a track record of being disastrous, from Iraq to Afghanistan to what’s going on in Venezuela around the world, wherever the United States came in to “save” it never really ended up being for the people. How do you make sense of this call for US intervention?SAHAR DELIJANI:I think in the diaspora, we have a responsibility not to call for more violence, especially when we’re not going to be the victims of that violence, not being in Iran ourselves. Because when we say no bombs, no intervention in Iran, we mean it for everybody. But the people in Iran who are asking for [US military intervention] are not just completely crazy—just think about the reality that the extremely difficult, violent reality that the Iranian regime, the Islamic Republic, has made for people, that they’ve reached a point that they’re thinking, “Oh, maybe bombs, at least would save us from this violence.”People who have lived through a tragedy, a massacre of 30,000 people in just a few days, you know, there is just so much pain. There’s so much pain, okay, but you’re saying, you know that the foreign intervention is dangerous, but look at what is happening to us now. The only way we are credible to the people on the ground if we want to stand against this sort of imperialist interventions and forces, is if we stand as strongly against the dictators that are killing them. Now, if we are just a little bit hesitant, even a tiny bit hesitant, to stand against those dictators, we are being huge hypocrites, and nobody will believe us. Nobody will believe that we have their liberation in mind when we stand against imperialist intervention. You are just telling us to choose between two types of killings. We need to stand against all types of oppression, no matter who’s doing it. It’s not about who does it, it’s about what we can do to bring it to an end."
}
]
}
