Farida Deglel

Farida Deglel is an Eritrean  fashion designer, who introduced wide variety of Eritrean cultural dresses on the red carpets of many international events. Farida, the eldest of nine children, was born in Keren, Eritrea. Her father Deglel Tesfamichael, being the head of the Department of Labor, had taken his family with him from town to town to his work placements. Farida left Eritrea at the age of 12 and began living in various countries across the Middle East and western countries. She built a successful career in marketing and sales with various international companies in hospitality and other fields.  Training in cosmetology at a young age allowed her to be involved in the industry as a sideline to her main career. Eventually settling in United Arab Emirates, she was able to establish her own successful salon and was able to fulfill her dream of going back to Keren and building a home.

In late in 2012, Farida began to design clothing and decided to put on a fashion show as a fund-raiser for orphan kids in Eritrea. Her passion for helping orphans had stemmed from her mother’s upbringing as an orphan. The fund-raiser turned out to be one of the most successful events of 2013 in Eritrea. The success made Farida become more conscious of her talent.  

“I started to be passionate about the international fashion vibe, at an early age hand crafts are really famous in our culture and children take it from our mothers as they too took it from their mothers. So in few words I grew up with background that was related to fashion in certain ways”

Her designs explore traditional costumes from Africa and Arabia with a modern perspective using fabrics, patterns and motifs of her native region. Fundamental of her brand is the use of unique fabrics, such as organic Eritrea-grown cotton, fused with traditional and modern designs.

A main feature of her label is the reinterpretation of the uses of the Kaba. Kaba is a velvet cape traditionally used solely as attire for religious events and weddings; Farida hopes to encourage its use in daily wear.  Another signature of her label is to embellish these time honored fabric with crystals, pearls and beads to highlight the motifs and accentuate the colors. Her label is also focused on encouraging women and men to use a combination of western aesthetics with cultural fabric and design when choosing wedding attire. Farida wishes to promote the uniqueness of the region’s hand-woven vibrantly colored fabric which uses silk, rayon, metallic and cotton fibers.  Elevating Eritrean produced and manufactured ‘Abujedid’, a versatile and sustainable cotton fabric is another desire of hers.

Her label has a range of women’s wear, men’s wear, children’s wear as well as swimwear. She is looking forward to developing her ready-to-wear collection for retailers and boutiques as well as online consumers.

Part of her vision is the revival of traditional Eritrean hand-woven fabric. Farida strongly believes that this is needed to allow the fashion industry to flourish. An important aspect of this revival goals will be to involve women – especially those who are unemployed or single mothers, thru establishing a union in which the workers will have shared ownership of the looms and the tools that they use. Farida also hopes to provide apprenticeship schemes and skill sharing workshops for orphan children in Eritrea who show an interest in the fashion industry.

Farida is now a leading modernist designer working on reaching broad fashion markets. She has shops in Dubai and Abu Dhabi and retailer access in Canada, North America and Eritrea. She’s also working on entering online retail business. Farida produces her garments in Dubai and ships them to markets worldwide. She has showcased at bridal shows and organized her own international fashion events. Television and radio have featured her in several countries not to mention online blogs such as ‘Okay Africa’ where she was a featured and coming Bridal Designer.

Farida’s garments have been worn by celebrities and individuals in the entertainment industry. Through hard work and commitment, her vision and skills have garnered her hard-earned success and influence in the highly competitive international fashion scene and allowed her to showcase unique Eritrean fashion. Her success has also helped shine a spot light on struggling Eritrean orphans and significantly contributed towards improving the living conditions.