Nafisa Shams Academy for Arts and Crafts, part of the Abdul Latif Jameel Community Services Programs, held a competition to choose the best Saudi designer on Tuesday in front of an audience of 500 Saudi women who gathered to witness the Kingdom's first competition in the field of fashion. In an attempt to encourage the fashion industry, Nafisa Shams Academy has decided to launch fashion competition annually. “We are aiming to highlight the talents of Saudi women by giving them a chance to show their fashion creations and to develop the fashion industry in the Kingdom,” said Suzan Al-Shami, the academy's director general. Each designer in the competition presented two dresses, one inspired by one of the regions of the Kingdom and the other inspired by a foreign country. “It is very important to have such events in the Kingdom,” said Nariman Khoja, a Saudi designer who participated in the competition. “It does not bother me that I did not win a prize. Instead, it has encouraged me to work harder to develop my skills,” she added. The jury members were specialists and well-known figures in the fashion field, such as, Heba Jamal, a professional fashion designer and one of the interviewers on the “Kalam Nawaem” TV show on the MBC1 channel; Stefania Gulina, a fashion stylist expert and the project manager and coordinator of the Fashion and Design Center in Egypt; Heba Halawani, a Saudi designer; and Dr. Hanan Bokhari, a fashion design professor at King Abdulaziz University.
