Fashion is usually associated with celebration: new beginnings, fantasy, glamour, all the things we want to wear when life is going well. But sometimes, designers turn to fashion for the opposite reason. Grief, loss and mourning have found their way into collections over the years, giving designers a language for emotions that are often difficult to put into words.
From a Saudi designer transforming personal grief into quiet couture to a Lebanese designer turning the aftermath of a national tragedy into hope, these collections show that mourning does not have one look. Sometimes it is black. Sometimes it is soft, celestial or even hopeful. And sometimes, it is simply about finding a way forward.
Cult Gaia — Behesht
For Spring/Summer 2027, Cult Gaia founder Jasmin Larian Hekmat also began with grief, but took the story somewhere lighter.
Named Behesht, the Persian word for paradise, the collection was inspired by the loss of Hekmat’s grandmother, Mommy Aghdas. It followed a gradual movement from darkness into light, beginning with more austere, darker looks before opening into the sculptural, playful fantasy Cult Gaia is known for.
The finale made the transition especially clear. Dresses that appeared to be covered in feathers were actually hand-painted, dip-dyed silk, followed by falling pink petals. It was a visual transformation of grief itself: beginning in darkness, then slowly becoming something softer and more hopeful.
Ashi Studio — The Beginnings
Then there is Mohammed Ashi, who looked further back in time for his Spring 2026 couture collection, calling it “The Beginnings”
The Saudi designer drew from the Victorian fascination with mourning, control and desire, translating historical mourning rituals into something sensual, surreal and distinctly modern.
Corsets, sculpted silhouettes, trailing hair, ghostly handprints, old love letters, wax seals, death moths and skeleton keys filled the collection with macabre references. Even mourning jewellery became a starting point, with hair woven directly into some of the gowns.
Ashi’s interpretation is less about processing one specific loss and more about examining the rituals surrounding grief — how people have historically dressed, behaved and created symbols around mourning.
Tima Abid — Inspired by Grief
At Riyadh Fashion Week 2025, Tima Abid presented a collection that felt less like a spectacle and more like a moment of reflection. The Saudi couture designer, known for her romantic and distinctly feminine work, turned to grief following the passing of her mother as her central inspiration.
The collection kept things deliberately restrained, moving through ivory, black and muted silver in fluid silhouettes that felt delicate without becoming fragile. Sheer layers, subtle crystals and softly moving fabrics gave the clothes an almost meditative quality.
Rather than depicting grief as darkness alone, Abid explored what comes after it: acceptance, tenderness and healing. The result was couture that felt deeply emotional without needing to be loud about it — a reminder that sometimes the quietest clothes can carry the heaviest feelings.
Georges Hobeika — A Tribute to Marie Hobeika
Georges Hobeika took a more personal route for his Spring/Summer 2025 couture collection, created in tribute to his late mother, Marie Hobeika.
The show began exactly where mourning traditionally does: in black. Veils, lace, gloves and even streaks of running mascara created the image of someone in the immediate aftermath of loss. But Hobeika did not leave the story there.
As the collection progressed, black gave way to colour, before eventually arriving at shimmering gold, silver and white. The journey moved from mourning toward something almost celestial — a vision of peace and an afterlife.
In that sense, the collection was not really about death as an ending. It was about memory, legacy and the possibility of finding beauty after loss.
Rami Kadi — Dessiner le Vide
For Lebanese-American designer Rami Kadi, grief came from somewhere much larger than personal loss.
His Fall/Winter 2021 couture collection, Dessiner le Vide — “Drawing the Void” — was born in the aftermath of the August 4, 2020 Beirut explosion, which devastated the city during an already painful economic and pandemic crisis.
Rather than simply recreate the darkness of that moment, Kadi imagined what could emerge from it. The collection used softened shapes, layered tulle, crystals, sequins and a muted but romantic palette to turn the idea of emptiness into something alive.
It was ultimately a collection about rebuilding. The void was there, but so was the possibility of filling it again — with creativity, beauty and hope.
Grief Doesn’t Have One Look
What connects these collections is not a shared colour palette or aesthetic. It is the idea that fashion can give shape to something that has no shape of its own.
For Tima Abid, grief became softness. For Rami Kadi, it became a void that could be rebuilt. Georges Hobeika transformed mourning into a journey toward peace, while Ashi Studio looked to the rituals of the past. And with Behesht, grief became a passage from darkness into light.
Maybe that is why mourning keeps returning to fashion. Clothes cannot erase loss, but they can help us express it, remember through it and, sometimes, imagine what comes next.
