Istituto Marangoni Dubai’s inaugural Fashion Show and Degree Show, titled: IN COMMON – Design in Dialogue, was held at Gooder, Alserkal Avenue, displaying the work of the university’s graduating students.
The initiative marks an important milestone for Istituto Marangoni Dubai and celebrates a new generation of creative talent emerging from the region as emerging designers took to the runway, presenting new perspectives on identity, culture and contemporary life
IN COMMON – Design in Dialogue brings together designers exploring identity, culture and contemporary life through fashion. Across the collections, heritage meets contemporary life; intimacy meets provocation; belonging intersects with rootlessness; and memories, music, nature, street culture and personal histories become material for new visual languages.
Rooted in Dubai and connected to the world, the inaugural runway reflects a generation for whom fashion is not a singular statement, but an evolving conversation. Distinct perspectives, cultural references and creative practices come together on one runway, creating connections across identities, disciplines and ways of seeing.
More than a fashion presentation, IN COMMON has been conceived as a cultural gathering within the creative landscape of Alserkal Avenue – a space for shared presence, experimentation and exchange.
A New Generation of Creative Designers
The Fashion Show forms part of Istituto Marangoni Dubai’s inaugural Degree Show 2026, a multidisciplinary celebration bringing together Graduate and Student work across six study areas: Fashion Business, Interior Design, Visual Design, Fashion Communication & Image, Fashion Design and Fragrance and Cosmetics.
The Degree Show extends the concept of IN COMMON beyond the runway, creating a shared platform in which different disciplines, methodologies and perspectives can interact. Rather than presenting design as a series of isolated outcomes, the exhibition examines what emerges through proximity – between disciplines, between individual and collective identities and between different ways of thinking, making and communicating.
Fashion Business projects include industry-led work such as OUNASS X FENDI and a Versace Relaunch Strategy, while Interior Design presents selected projects spanning hospitality, residential, community and cultural spaces. Visual Design showcases work across branding, campaigns, packaging, editorials, UI design, motion graphics, posters and exhibition design. Fashion Design and Fashion Communication and Image further contribute collections, styling, image-making and creative direction, alongside work from Fragrance and Cosmetics.
Together, the projects create an interconnected landscape of ideas, objects, images, spaces, narratives and propositions.
“IN COMMON – Design in Dialogue is a celebration, a milestone for Istituto Marangoni Dubai and a special moment for our community,” said Roberto La Iacona, Dubai School Director.
“For the first time, we are celebrating our graduates through both a fashion show and an exhibition, creating a platform that highlights the creativity and talent of our students across disciplines.
“At Istituto Marangoni Dubai, we believe that young talent deserves to be seen, recognised, and celebrated. By providing opportunities for students to present their work to industry professionals and the wider public, we help them take an important step from education into their professional careers. We are incredibly proud of our graduates and the positive contribution they will make to the future of the creative industries in Dubai, the region and beyond.”
Marie Genevieve Cyr, Dubai School Director of Education, added: “IN COMMON – Design in Dialoguereflects what we believe design education should make possible: the transformation of individual experience into shared cultural meaning. Across the runway and Degree Show, our graduates bring forward distinct voices shaped by heritage, identity, memory, place, experimentation, and contemporary life – yet what is most powerful is what emerges between them.
“Fashion, image, space, communication, and strategy come into dialogue, revealing design not as a series of isolated outcomes, but as a collective practice capable of questioning, connecting and proposing new ways of seeing.
Alaa Naser Asker – Do Your Laundry
Do Your Laundry began with the quote: “Everybody wants to save the world, but nobody wants to help Mom do the laundry.” The statement inspired an exploration of how everyday rituals once created space for connection, care and conversation.
Looking at laundry as a metaphor for human connection, the collection reflects on a contemporary world increasingly shaped by technology, disconnection and accelerated lifestyles. Asker contrasts our desire to change the world with the simple acts of care we can overlook in our daily lives.
Aya Kaddour – The Hidden Beauty of Villainy
The Hidden Beauty of Villainy explores the contrast between external perception and inner identity, drawing inspiration from misunderstood villains and characters with complex or dual identities
The collection examines how darkness and beauty can coexist, using trousers as a key expression of the tension between a dark exterior and a softer, hidden inner self. Contrasting textures, silhouettes, proportions and details bring this duality into a contemporary fashion language.
Through dramatic visual codes combined with delicate elements, Kaddour questions how appearances shape our understanding of character and reveals the vulnerability and beauty that can exist beneath the surface.
Chloe Crisolo – Dripping Water Wears Away Stone
Dripping Water Wears Away Stone explores resilience, transformation and the relationship between persistence and change. The collection originated from a painting Crisolo created in ninth grade, which she associates with the hopes and dreams of youth and their continued search for expression in adulthood.
Inspired by the gradual erosion of stone by water, the collection combines structural silhouettes, deconstructed tailoring and experimental draping with fluid forms inspired by the aurora borealis. Dark black tones are contrasted with purples and greens, creating a dialogue between strength and movement.
Through second-hand garments and a combination of geometric structure and fluidity, the collection reflects the journey of personal growth and the strength found in embracing vulnerability and transformation.
Harsha Serrem – Axion
Axion explores the relationship between fate, human agency and unpredictability through Greek mythology, Chaos Theory and fractal geometry. Inspired by the Moirai, the Greek Fates who determine the course of human life, the collection questions whether destiny is predetermined or shaped by individual choices.
Chaos Theory and fractal geometry introduce ideas of underlying patterns, repetition and complexity, creating a dialogue between order and chaos, control and uncertainty. Inspired by Constructivist art, geometry and mathematical forms, these concepts are translated into structured silhouettes and controlled constructions disrupted by irregular forms and movement.
Jana Mneimneh – Hikari-Uchi
Hikari-Uchi, meaning ‘light within’, explores finding strength in chaos and rebuilding after destruction. The collection contrasts protection and vulnerability, chaos and control, darkness and light, with garments designed to feel almost like armour – protecting the body while revealing the person beneath.
Inspired by Akira, Japanese streetwear, Bōsōzoku culture, motorcycle protective gear and futuristic architecture, the collection combines layered structures, translucent details and protective elements. The lotus flower serves as a symbol of rebirth, representing the ability to transform destruction into beauty and find light in darkness.
Karim Fakhrutdinov – Lola
Lola begins with the questions: What clothes will we die in? What do we leave behind when we die?
The collection is built around Karim Fakhrutdinov’s original gothic narrative of an eighteenth-century bride whose body becomes the site of her physician-husband’s experiments. Later restrained by a garment designed to prevent her from harming herself, she wears it for the rest of her life.
Inspired by the straitjacket, Lola explores confinement, control, identity and the relationship between the body and clothing. The collection emerged alongside an original narrative poem by Karim, reflecting on birth, decay, life and death as an ongoing cycle.
Maria Arnaout – Darling, Your Hair
Darling, Your Hair explores the contradictions of Victorian femininity, where women were expected to embody modesty while their bodies remained objects of fascination and desire. Through hair symbolism, exaggerated proportions, corsetry and sculptural silhouettes, the collection examines the tension between repression and eroticism and questions how femininity is constructed and controlled.
Drawing from Victorian beauty standards, historical corsetry and the era’s complex relationship with female sexuality, hair becomes a recurring symbol of femininity and intimacy. These historical codes are distorted through provocative contemporary forms, creating a tension between familiarity and discomfort.
Nadine Suliman – Wadi Halfa
This collection draws inspiration from the lost Nubian region of Wadi Halfa and its vernacular architecture. Fascinated by how her ancestors created beautiful structures using earth and materials naturally available around them, Nadine translates this approach into contemporary fashion.
Through her research, she developed her own biodegradable fabrics using natural ingredients, applying traditional ideas of resourcefulness and material connection to the construction of two garments.
Pin Xi Bao – The Burial Grounds
The Burial Grounds imagines a fictional civilisation whose royal capital has been destroyed and buried beneath fire, ash and time. Centuries later, its garments, jewellery and material fragments are rediscovered – preserved, yet displaced from their original bodies and meanings.
Inspired by archaeological imagery, historical dress, Byzantine and Middle Eastern ornaments and theatrical characterisation, the collection reconstructs this lost world through fragmented structures, layered materials and distorted silhouettes. Luxury, fragility, disorder and decay come together to create a civilisation seen only through what remains of it. Each character is given a distinct visual identity, transforming historical references into a new fictional world.
Sofia Kalacheva – Contour. Born in Sawdust. / Fin de Siècle.
Sofia Kalacheva’s work explores painting from the past as a source of inspiration, challenging familiar shapes and transforming them into forms of art. For the runway, two collections are brought together to explore contrasts and the versatility of design.
Contour. Born in Sawdust. / Fin de Siècle. draws on the world of hereditary circus performers, the white circus dome and exaggerated reality. Inspired by the circle of the arena, circus fantasy and the sharp contours of German Expressionist painting, the collection contrasts entertainment with the boundaries imposed on performers.
Fin de Siècle. looks toward the post-Victorian era through the duality of decadence – despondency and eroticism – and utopia – art and beauty. Industrialisation, arts and crafts, and Art Nouveau shape its visual language, reflecting a society caught between opulence, melancholy and social inequality.
Together, the collections explore the mobility of design and the idea that things are not always what they first appear to be.
In collaboration with L’Oréal Middle East, the hair and make-up looks will be curated by celebrity makeup artist and hair stylist Shindesu and his team.