The abaya is a key part of women’s wear and a ubiquitous cultural marker when it comes to Emirati life. At Sharjah Heritage Days, one can expect to find a few abaya designers at the festival venue in Heart of Sharjah. Fatima Hamid, owner of the abaya brand 6 April Designs (@6april.designs) shows off her abayas and shaylas in different cuts and styles at her stall in the market corner.

“April 6 is my birthday and I started the label exactly on my birthday a year ago, hence the name,” Fatima says.

All the items in her line are her own designs, and created in her own home by her staff. “I only create garments that I would wear myself,” she says, showing abayas with rose swirls, laser cutouts, appliques and beadwork. Her abayas are customisable and available in colours as well. “Right now, the hot trend is the all-in-one abaya featuring a skirt and a top,” says Fatima, who has been designing privately for family and friends for 20 years.

Nearby is the Al Mawda line of traditional Palestinian style thobes – or dresses – in signature cross-stitch embroidery. Its owner and designer Huda Abdalla Mesmeh has travelled all the way here from Gaza, just to exhibit at Sharjah Heritage Days. She is also part of an organisation that works to empower women in Gaza, and the outfits are all handmade by those women, giving them a source of income.

“The cross-stitch embroidery is immediately identifiable as Palestinian, but a lot of other nationalities are buying the dresses here,” says Huda, who made the painstaking journey from Gaza through Rafah in Egypt and then onward to the UAE, for her first exhibition at the event. Besides the dresses, her line also includes kuffiyeh and cross-stitch design purses, wallets, mobile phone holders, wooden boxes, ashtrays, keychain holders and mirror frames.

Meet these incredible female entrepreneurs and offer your patronage to their fashion lines before the
22-day festival wraps up this Saturday, April 10.