Fashion house Firdaws (“Gardens of Paradise”), founded by the wife of Chechen head Ramzan Kadyrov, held its first ever fashion show outside Russia, presenting a new collection in Dubai.
The collection, dubbed Lady Chechnya, included some 70 outfits, all of them following the Islamic tradition of keeping a woman’s head covered, the Russian Emirates news website reported on Sunday.
However, the models did not veil their faces, in line with traditions of both Chechnya and the United Arab Emirates.
“I’m sure the Dubai show is a first step toward conquering the world of Middle Eastern fashion,” Medni Kadyrova said.
Firdaws has another show scheduled in Saudi Arabia and plans to open stores in Dubai and unspecified other localities abroad, the report said.
Kadyrova, 31, a mother of seven, established Firdaws in the republican capital Grozny in 2009. She does not design outfits herself, with Lady Chechnya created by a team of two Chechen designers who dedicated their work to her, the report said.
Chechnya was ravished by a war between Islamic separatists and Russian federal forces until the mid-2000s, when an intensified crackdown forced the insurgency to move to neighboring republics in the North Caucasus. Chechnya has since received lavish federal subsidies that allowed Grozny, the capital, to be rebuilt. The city now boasts several skyscrapers, a new sports stadium with a seating capacity of 30,000 and its own film festival.
