Fatima Mahmood

Creative Director, founder and designer of ALA MAIRI
Round table discussant

ALA MAIRI is a Luxury Ethical Fashion brand which was inspired by finest craftsmanship of hand-loom weaving in Scotland fused with cultural ties with Pakistan. The journey started in 2011, a deep and personal journey to Highlands of Scotland where she met many individual hand-loom weavers, that following year Fatima visited Pakistan, where she met a community of talented hand embroiders. She was in awe of the ‘crafts and skills’ of the handmade craftsmanship in both countries and knew then the vision for Ala Mairi was to infuse both cultures through fashion by involving the artisans and her passion for ethical values.

Fatima is a successful awardee of:

starter for 6 programme - 2012 by the Cultural Enterprise Office for Fatima’s Ethical Fashion ‘Idea’ when the Ala Mairi brand was starting to flourish and launching the first clothing collection in 2013 which created an infusion of artisans work from both cultures from Scotland to Pakistan.

Innovation Award - 2015 by Interface and collaboration with Dundee University with this award Ala Mairi launched a new range of fashion accessories using the latest digital print techniques

The brand Ala Mairi creates and designs hand-woven and embroidered scarfs, the innovation also takes hand-woven designed patterns and digitally manipulates them to create contemporary scarfs printed onto ethical sourced fabrics from Modal and Organic bamboo silks. Fatima is always researching to bring more ethical and Sustainable ways in new products each year.

Ala Mairi

With Ala Mairi’s passion to celebrate the integrity of craftsmanship and hand-made it was to come hand-in-glove that the ethical fashion was a positive route to embrace and with certainty that the brand qualifies as ‘ethical’ - Ala Mairi continues to expand and embrace the boundaries that this ‘term’ comes with. Ala Mairi sees that humans we are all evolving and the evolution is uncertain one - when we start to question the boundaries and processes, it’s a journey that must be developed and evolve with passion and integrity, with ethical fashion on the cusp of new horizons with ever evolving and developing new technologies and trends – the human fast-fashion consumption has been called into question it is time to look geographically at what, and how we support artisans, the studios, and the independent craftsmen and call into question the materials we source though fashion and textiles.

The greatest challenge for a fashion designer facing in today’s climate is to be recognised and rise amongst hundreds of brands, and the radical fast-fashion demands for ‘quick’ and cheap production - not only that she or he wants the brand to be successful, also a promise that designer/founder give their whole heart to the craftsman’s that promise: ‘’Yes, together we will create’’ - “together the footprints we start must stand tide and time” and that’s the calling of Ala Mairi and every designer must embrace - no matter how big or small is that change. Ethical fashion is much deeper and revolutionary than the average cynical view. Opinions and eyes need to be opened to see “clothes made by organic cotton and natural dyes” – are not for the hippies and vegan’s… ethical fashion is a revolution – and at Ala Mairi we aim to take this and hold fast though every challenge.