Spring/Summer 2017

The new collection is officially out! Spring/Summer 2017, here we are and what a collection it is. As some of you may know, my sister and I run an abaya making business together. We make abayas for our label Barakah London. It's a brand we both co-founded where we make bespoke abayas for clients.

And if you're wondering, yes, we actually make them. We source the fabrics, design the abayas AND we make them all ourselves. This makes each piece we make that little bit more special because we put our time into making it. It's all hand-made. 

Not only do we make them, we also tailor make too. This means we'll take the design you want and make it in your size. So you can have your bespoke made abaya, for the time you need it, in the design you want. Now imagine having an abaya, designed for you that no one else actually has! 

Honestly, I feel it's so rare to find bespoke made abayas especially in the UK, made by women. A lot of us sisters need that, especially when it's impossible to find an abaya in your particular size. And personally, I have always shied away from getting abayas tailor made purely because it's usually men that do the tailoring. 

So call us a breath of fresh air if you will. And I don't mean to toot my own horn but it's important for us sisters to provide a service where women will feel comfortable to have something made. 

Now, enough about what we do, let's get onto the new collection and some of our thoughts behind it. The collection carries on with our Arabic numbered theme. Each abaya is numbered in the Arabic language. (so if you're planning to learn the Arabic numbers, like us, our abayas might be able to help out!)

This particular collection is a lot simpler than a lot of our previous ones. It was made for the sole purpose of being able to look stylish in a very simple way. There isn't too much lace or embellishments, this time around, playing with fabric lead us to create some of our favourite pieces in the collection.

For daywear in the summer time, these would be a perfect choice. The abayas don't need much dressing up. With a stylish mini bag on the side, you could have your outfit sorted. For most of the collection, the abayas are open. They, of course, have snaps if you decide you want it closed but having that open look won't be too far away. This is great if you want to add some colour to your outfit, you can wear a coloured dress underneath.

We have (of course) made a few evening pieces which we cannot do without! One of these includes a cape. The cape has a polka dot lace piece as the shoulders. We hand stitched some crystals and pearls around it. This can be worn with a dress underneath. Furthermore, it can be worn to events where you don't really want to take off your abaya, but still, want to look good at the same time.

Overall, it's a collection with pockets, bell sleeves, bias binding and embellishments. Every piece serves a purpose. For example, we have the simple, no colour abayas. For days you want a simple look. There are the slightly coloured bias binding pieces. They are very subtle but make a small statement. Then we have our embellished evening pieces because evenings are when making a statement matters.

Oh and one more thing, I bet you're wondering about the flower frames. These frames were hand made for us by a company called Flowery Frames. We were lucky enough to have a personalised frame made for us to fit our theme.

We loved the idea of the flowers being around our abayas. It really brought out our Spring/Summer theme for this collection. Because it's during this season that flowers blossom and grow so adding it to our photo shoot worked really well.

Head over to their Instagram to see more of their beautiful work >>>@floweryframes 

Also, you an order our new collection over on our website >>> Barakah London