Beyond the bounds of the glamorous world of fashion, Algerian fashion designer Rayan Atlas was born in the desert town of Bechar, but his love for design and tailoring was a motivating force to enter the field. He moved to Tunisia to study fashion design and fulfill his passion, and after joining the TV show Project Runway and reaching its finals, new doors opened for him smoothing the path to success and fame. Rayan Atlas is preparing to launch a new collection that revolves around the classic and out of the ordinary, which will be revealed exclusively for the first time in a photoshoot through Soul Arabia magazine.
Couture designers around the world have taken advantage of the coronavirus pandemic differently, revising their detailed design process, from the origins of the ideas to the inspiration for each collection.” each person has experienced the pandemic differently but what I think is common is the retrospective and introspection that it has allowed us to do, a lot of things have changed and personally it has allowed me to ask myself after the frenzy of work and making peace with the different facets of my personality, knowing what I should preserve and what should be improved in order to be able to project myself into the future”, says Atlas.
In line with the changes the fashion world has undergone over the years of Pandemic, home isolation, and back to normal life again after the vaccine launch, Atlas created his new, as he adds: “The “MOUVANCE” collection perfectly embodies this state of mind, the desire to move forward without forgetting traditions go towards a future that we hope will be golden, without forgetting to learn lessons from the greyness we have gone through it is therefore natural that the collection transcribes this state of mind”.
Femininity and strength, in these two words, Atlas expresses every piece in his collection, stressing that it is the embodiment of a woman full of femininity and strength at the same time. The masculine designs that appear in the jumpsuits and vests are made of expensive materials such as hand-made lace and embroidery, in addition to maintaining the Algerian touch in the accessories in order to preserve the identity.“ MOUVANCE collection perfectly captures the state of mind I’ve spoken of, catching masculine-feminine silhouettes with touches of velvet and traditional Algerian embroidery, shades of gray and greige on silhouettes sometimes strict sometimes romantic and seductive cutouts in tulle worked and reworked by hand, sensual and feminine silk that evokes this gray period through which we went, and other silhouettes metallic gold with classic cuts more official, masculine with rich brocades reworked sequins that evoke the gradual return to the world of work” says Atlas.
Atlas set his collection from a different perspective that combines sophistication and practicality at the same time to suit most women, while now working on the new men’s fashion collection, in which he follows the same style, idea, and approach to photography. He says,” I consider this collection to be a kind of transition for me, a new way of seeing the Rayan Atlas woman and man up on which I will base myself for my next collections”.
To the artistic director and photographer Adel Elias, who adequately portrayed it like a dream, the collection expresses a kind of duality between tradition and a desire to move towards modernity. He says: ” The silhouettes are modern but have a touch of Algerian traditional clothing and this duality that I wanted to transcribe in my photos, it’s a kind of internal debate between different thoughts embodied by these characters: modernity, traditions, femininity, masculinity, madness, reason, self-confidence, doubt, sensuality, shyness, arrogance, modesty and other facets of personality that can be found in each of us, they bubble up a quarrel, come together and stimulate creativity”.
