A poem to Arab beauty: Fashion designs of Hana Sadiq

With verses from love poems and flowing calligraphy, Jordan-based fashion designer Hana Sadiq stitches a testament to the beauty of Arab women.

In a career spanning decades, Iraqi-born Sadiq has shown her creations worldwide and dressed the stars, but she remains rooted in the traditions of her homeland. The artistic handwriting of Arabic script dominates her embroidered modern designs, with poetry or letters scattered in bright colors.

She uses various calligraphic styles, from the elaborate Diwani to the curving Thuluth, and features on some of her outfits the lines of renowned Arab poets including Mahmoud Darwish and Nizar Qabbani.

"Arabic calligraphy is the most beautiful," says Sadiq, 72, showing off her love of jewellery with strings of beads around her neck, dangling earrings, and unusual stone rings.

At her home workshop in downtown Amman, Sadiq notes that the earliest writing was born several millennia before Christ in what is now Iraq, arguing that it was a place "without which all the other civilisations would not have existed."
Sadiq has split her time between Amman and Paris since 1982, having both French and Jordanian nationality as well as Iraqi citizenship.

She has exhibited from Europe to the United States as well as the Middle East, returning home with an
extensive collection of antique silver ornaments, along with thousands of pieces of Arab textiles and costumes.
Her kaftans, traditional robes, feature bright and stunning colors. They reflect
the influence of her grandmother who wore a traditional Iraqi "Hashemite dress" and walked "elegantly like a peacock."
The folk outfit is made of very thin fabric with wide sleeves and transparent sides, decorated with beautiful floral ornaments,...