In spirit of the season, Rasah Farouk launched a summer collection of RF Fashion, featuring bright colors like pink, orange, green and yellow and new lines of bags and cardigans.
Farouk started her budding fashion design business as a family affair. “Together with my sister I wanted to create a new fashion line featuring mainly 3D printing,” Farouk told the Daily News Egypt.
Rasha and Rania Farouk would carefully select striking images and print them on ready-made T-shirts, further enhancing the prints with ornaments to create a 3D effect. “We started with printing portraits of celebrities,” Farouk elaborated. “Then, if for instance the celebrity was wearing an earring in the picture, we would attach a real, tangible earring to the print.”
Over the space of a few months, the sisters were able to work in their spare time and create pieces to present to the general public in October last year. During an open day for small businesses event, they introduced their signature T-shirts and embroidered cushions.
Afterwards, Rania had different obligations and had to abandon the family business for a while, so Rasha continued alone with the designing and implementing. “I felt it was time to take things to the next level and decided to abandon using ready-made T-Shirts and started designing and producing my own shirts,” Farouk said. The decision gave her more flexibility in terms of design, quality of material as well as the colours of the shirts and bags.
Farouk stayed true to the foundation on which her designs are based and continued using oriental themes. “I try to pick prints, accessories and designs which reflect an oriental theme, something that you do not see a lot of in today’s fashion.”
The technique Farouk uses to create her signature 3D effect makes the need for wearing other accessories almost non-existent. And one of the nicest things about owning one of RF Design’s pieces is that they are all handmade. “I usually make one piece per product, maximum two,” Farouk assured. “The client knows they are buying something that is unique.”
“The next step for RF Designs is becoming present online,” Farouk told The Daily News Egypt, voicing her plans for the future. Intent on launching a Facebook page to promote her business, Farouk does not want to include her full collection online to preserve its uniqueness. “I plan to only put a few products on the page to promote the brand, I want to preserve the fact that each piece is unique.”
Carving out a niche in Egypt’s saturated fashion market is not easy; affordable fashion is offered in many international franchises. RF Designs is confident there is a place for them though, their designs are different from the mainstream, their prices are reasonable and Farouk is up for the challenge to turn her business into a success.
