Exclusive Interview with Lojy Faiek: Insights into her latest collection

Early career and inspiration

Hi everyone, this is Lojy Faiek, I was born and raised in Egypt and I have lived in the past 3 years in Germany, I studied Fashion Design at Macromedia University in Berlin and I am 21 years old.

I decided to pursue a career in fashion design because my grandmother was a fashion designer and she has inspired me to start this up, I always loved art but I didn’t know until I was in the field of Fashion Design that I wanted to study it and I’ve loved it ever since. Since my grandma got Lymphoma in her arm and couldn’t pursue her dream, I wanted to do it in her honour but I grew to love it and I’m so glad that she pushed me to do it because I just love it.

I got the inspiration for my collection from Egypt, which is my home country, where I lived for 18 years., but also from my life, the fact that I was raised by German people, since I used to go to a German school and now I live in Germany, but yet I still know my heritage and I still love it and couldn’t live without it.

I look up to Christian Dior. He has always been my favourite designer of all time because i love the simplicity in his design, yet they are so unique. Every Dior garment you would know its Dior. The prints, the colours, everything is so unique and very simple. It shows that you don’t have to go crazy to make nice garments and make people like it, you can go really simple and it can still be you. He inspires me a lot with his grayish tones and the hats and he once said in his book that ‘an outfit is not complete without a headpiece’ and that stuck with me ever since.

I would say my designs are not crazy, they are rather simple but they always have a meaning behind it. Every detail has something to say, every knit, every seam. I would also say my designs are expressive and wearable.

Insights about a tale of two cultures

The collection is called ‘A Tale of Two Cultures’ because it shows the two cultures that I’m mostly influenced from, one being Egypt, where I was raised but yet I cannot deny that I am half german, whether I like it or not, its not by blood, but its by the people that raised me and by the norms that I have learned growing up, seeing as since I was 3 years old up until i graduated high school and even after that I was mentored by German people and I was obeying the german rules, so to say, and I cannot deny that this is a part of my life.

The story behind it is, does the fact that I’ve lived so much time both in Egypt and in Germany shape my role in society as a woman? The thesis is about whether heritage shapes your role in society and if its different in Egypt than for example in Europe, something I can relate to since I live there now.

It was pretty hard to make sure that I put the Egyptian elements with the modern part of Germany, represented by the metal elements and to recognise that this is not a costume and it still had to look good and wearable and not go into the cliche Pharaoh style that usually when you say Egypt everyone thinks of. I also worked in collaboration with an Egyptian accessories brand called OKHTEIN, so all the bags you see are from their brand.

For the first look, I used metal and gold and silver to symbolise the modernisation of Germany and how good they are in the technical area. Also, part of the color scheme is gold and silver because its very unique and kingdom-like, and the beige represents the color of the papyrus (the paper Egyptians used to write on) so its’s a mix that goes for both sides.

In the second male look, there is a silver headpiece made out of small beads that I did by hand myself. The flowy pants represent the way Arab men would dress, using the same color scheme as the others. The head and face piece worn by the woman was used by the women in the 1800, and a very famous example is the serial killers Raya and Sakina used to wear this specific style of headpiece.

The other male outfit includes a Kaftan, a very famous male piece of clothing in Egypt, I tried to make it. little more modern, where it doesnt have sleeves, its pen and its paired with open pants that aren’t really normalised for men, but this is what the topic of the collection is about. It’s about normalising things that wouldn’t usually be normal in Arab countries but in European countries such as Germany they wouldn’t be considered ‘weird’ and the message of the collection is exactly this ‘try to open up your eyes’

The gold corset that was in my latest collection has to be my favourite piece I’ve created. Its so strong and it pops off in the whole collection, its unique and I’ve never seen anything like it. It reminds me of the Balenciaga collection and I just find it really cool.

The hardest part of creating my collection was the time management, since everything is handmade, making sure it doesn’t look cheap. Its really hard to imagine something and then make it come to life, because no matter what you imagine, it will never be 100% the same as in your head. But I would like to take this opportunity to thank my amazing models, because without them none of this would have been possible!

future, advice and ideas

My favourite part about being a fashion design student is the diversity and seeing how people send their messages and communicate through fashion and how deep fashion is, I loved learning that. I also loved working with the materials and imagine things and actually make them come to life.

I would like to create my own brand later, but first I am pursuing some other dreams and when the time is right I would of course pursue my own brand or collaborate with a well known brand to kind of give me the first push.

In 5 years I hope that I am a well known model, since that is my no. 1 career that I want to pursue and to be on a magazine or even on TV with my little dogs in my apartment in Berlin, having fun and living life.

A piece of advice for aspiring Fashion Designers is ‘Just do it’, because you are always scared at the begining to do it and to go crazy with the designs, to do something that takes time, just do it. Go withit because fashion is so good you can always turn it up no matter how bad it is, you can never throw something because you can always use it and you can always transform it again. Its all reusable and it can only get better, it can never get worse.