Q&a / How fashion brand By Walid came to be: British-Iraqi designer Walid al Damirji on how he got his start at Paris Fashion Week with a single jacket, and why London is losing creative talent
Chinese jackets made with silks and repurposed linings are a staple of the designer, who is based in London – but he finds it a ‘sad town’, with the best talent heading to Milan and Paris
Walid al Damirji has been in the world of fashion for as long as he can remember – that is, excluding the time he left it, convinced he’d had enough.
The British-Iraqi designer worked in buying, selling, and everything in between, for the likes of Joseph Ettedgui and Mrs B (of multi-brand stores Joseph and Browns, respectively), until he got fed up. “I set up a chain of bakeries and chocolate shops. But it just pulled me back in,” says al Damirji from his London studio, a veritable library of antique fabrics in a Shepherd’s Bush mews house.
Unsated by sweets, he one day raided his collection of textiles and made himself a jacket out of 18th century linen, with a repurposed mink lining. The requests flooded in. “There wasn’t a single editor who didn’t want one,” al Damirji recounts. He gave in and went to Paris Fashion Week with some friends, where he showed just the jacket in a loaned apartment on Rue Saint-Honoré. “On the first day, I said, ‘If I get 10 orders, dinner’s on me.’ The second day we got 10, and I said, ‘If we get more, I’m going to upgrade you to business class.’ On the third day, we had 900 orders for this one jacket.”
Since launching By Walid in 2011, the designer has insisted on growth at his own pace. Indeed, his medium and his tools – everything from 19th century Victorian beading to 1920s Chinese embroidered silks – suit his slower approach, as he explains to Style.
You started with that one jacket. Where is the business now?
Unfortunately, we have four women’s collections and two men’s collections a year to do. I want to make it smaller now; I’ve had enough. It grew very quickly during that time of department stores and e-commerce, and they’ve all disappeared. So, it’s a new adventure for all of us.
I don’t feel this need to create a big offering. Also, we’re so niche, and there’s only so much time in the day I can dedicate to making coats. Why would I waste time making things that are cookie cutter and [easily] available? So I’m weaning myself off it.
Yesterday I had a meeting with a shoe brand, a big company that wants to do a collaboration. But I have my own point of view, my own aesthetic and narrative. If you can’t stick to that, I’m not interested. I don’t need it. I never liked to say now – but now, suddenly, at my age, I’ve learned to say no. My father passed away last year and one day I woke up thinking, “I can say no.”
Making that first jacket out of old fabrics was very forward-thinking of you.