ABOUT
The brand essence and the designers
The TIIYA woman is a woman who celebrates quality, inspired design, and craftsmanship.
She is timeless, elegant, and poised.
The brand essence
Founded in 2015, TIIYA debuted in Arab Fashion Week, as part of the international fashion calendar, however, the first label that evolved into TIIYA was founded in 2006 and was the first ‘made in Qatar’ product asides from oil and gas to export out of Qatar. The Ministry of Trade had to produce the export license especially for the export of the garments which sold off the racks in Harrods before Harrods was acquired by Qatar Holdings. This unprecedented event was the pioneering move that encouraged a shift in the culture of consumerism towards being producers. The brand TIIYA today, is the first Qatari haute couture brand. It is creatively directed by the mother and daughter design duo Shaikha Alanoud Alattiya and Shaikha Shaikha Al-Thani, who soon joined her mother in helming the Doha-based atelier not long after the brand's emergence. The Doha-based atelier is located in Qatar with six permanently hired Petites Mains who locally create and produce TIIYA's wearable works of art, whilst also simultaneously outsourcing from numerous Maison de la broderie.
The mother-daughter design duo
"The labor of love derives from the duo’s shared passion for ethnography and anthropology – the study of cultural attire, motifs, and references that can be found in archival imagery and from nature. “It’s not just designing, it’s the entire process of being inspired together. We spend so much time discussing form, cut, embellishment, and vision for each collection – from the imagining and planning of the gowns to the presentation and right up to the photoshoots,” comments Alattiya. “We are also both the stylists and creative directors of our shoots, while Shaikha takes the photographs.” Their bond thrives outside the atelier, too. Alattiya describes “tafakur,” a discipline of contemplation and seeing magnificence and grandeur through the beauty of creation. “We can lose ourselves for hours watching documentaries on history, culture, and nature; in fact, we plan our vacations around the discovery of these passions,” (VOGUE ARABIA 2021)"
"For the two women, fashion has long been a family affair. Alattiya shares how being born into traditions of cultural etiquette whereby social practices involve receiving guests – “wearing beautifully embellished gowns, first traditional, and then contemporary, as a staple amid women of society” – shaped her mindset. Alattiya’s early childhood recollection starts with her paternal grandmother, Shaikha Fatima bint Abdullah bin Jassim Al Thani, whose father, HH Sheikh Abdullah, was Qatar’s second Emir. Her grandmother’s trousseau featured a collection of silk thoube nashels of different colors. They were commissioned for her in India in the late Thirties and early Forties. Alattiya now owns the last of the trousseau collection, a purple royal thoube, which is on loan to the National Museum of Qatar. Another woman whose style served as inspiration is Alattiya’s mother, Kuwaiti Sharifa Al Sayer, of who she shares, “She was well-traveled, well-read, and cultured, and was one of the first women in the Gulf to wear Dior when it was sold in the Al Jameel stores – the Harrods of Kuwait – during the Fifties through to the Seventies.” (VOGUE ARABIA 2021)
Alattiya’s parents lived in Iran during the reign of the shah, with her father as one of Qatar’s first ambassadors. “In Iran, my mother had to present herself and the shared culture of my father by wearing our thoube nashels at formal events. By then, this cultural garment had evolved into intricately beaded renditions that were still commissioned in India, which until today remains the heart of haute hand-embroidery. However, to cater to my mother’s discerning tastes, my father arranged two visits to Paris annually so she could attend the couture shows.” Growing up among her mother’s couture collection, including Balenciaga, Givenchy, Torrente, Jacques Fath, and her favorite Dior, Alattiya would often open the clothing linings to discover the secrets of their construction. Her mother nurtured her interest in fashion, suggesting she commission her own designs. “In the late 90s and early 2000s, my aesthetic sensibilities stopped wandering,”
“I settled on Gianfranco Ferré as my all-time favorite at that time. While living in London, I sent him some of my sketches and he responded by asking me to join his atelier. Sadly, I could not, due to personal reasons.” Her daughter Shaikha was born that year in 2000. “She has since grown to become my protégée and co-designer and often exceeds me with her designer talent and eye for detail, coupled with her wonderful ability to amalgamate my thoughts into something unexpected,” beams Alattiya of her child. “It’s as though I see the fine details and she creates the frame to encapsulate them within.” (VOGUE ARABIA 2021)