Fashion according to Naya al-Ahdab: From disability to universal
In Paris, the young Franco-Lebanese designer is shaking up the fashion world from her wheelchair. Her first collection, both armor and self-portrait, redesigns clothing from a seated perspective.
In a light-filled Parisian studio, a young woman was shaping a world to her measure. At her table, gathered fabrics, sculpted neoprene and prototypes awaited. And everywhere, suspended between rolls of silk and charcoal sketches, a calm and tenacious will: to make fashion a gentle weapon. Naya al-Ahdab is 22 years old. She was born in New York, grew up in Paris, and still spends her vacations in Lebanon. And she has never walked. A neuroblastoma, a cancer in infants, detected too late and removed from the thorax, already affected her spinal cord, leaving her legs inert. But everything else raced ahead: her head, her hands, her gaze.
'I used fashion to divert attention from my wheelchair'
“Fashion has always been obvious to me, at least the artistic world,” the designer said. “When I imagined growing up or having a job or a career, I...
In a light-filled Parisian studio, a young woman was shaping a world to her measure. At her table, gathered fabrics, sculpted neoprene and prototypes awaited. And everywhere, suspended between rolls of silk and charcoal sketches, a calm and tenacious will: to make fashion a gentle weapon. Naya al-Ahdab is 22 years old. She was born in New York, grew up in Paris, and still spends her vacations in Lebanon. And she has never walked. A neuroblastoma, a cancer in infants, detected too late and removed from the thorax, already affected her spinal cord, leaving her legs inert. But everything else raced ahead: her head, her hands, her gaze.
'I used fashion to divert attention from my wheelchair'
“Fashion has always been obvious to me, at least the artistic world,” the designer said. “When I imagined growing up or having a job or a...
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