Mira Mikati On Colourful Creations and Crafting Dream Footballs
From Kylian Mbappé to José Mourinho, we sit down with the London-based Lebanese designer to find out what it was like working with some of the biggest names in the game for the “Hublot Loves Football” campaign
It’s evident Mira Mikati dreams in colour. Take one look at the Lebanese fashion designer’s creations, the stories she tells through bright-hued frocks, the eclectic shapes, patterns and silhouettes of her ready-to-wear collections, and it feels silly to entertain the idea of her mind thinking in black and white – in any capacity. But is there a particular colour that makes a regular appearance in the subconscious wanderings at night, when she’s asleep and her psyche has time to explore the dreamscape? “Rainbows,” Mira answers. Of course.
It’s the eve of the 2022 FIFA World Cup and we’re chatting about footballs – no, that’s not a typo – and the collaboration Mira worked on with Hublot, the tournament’s official timekeeper, with fifteen friends and ambassadors of the brand.
The list of participants is an impressive one. French footballer Kylian Mbappé, Portuguese football manager José Mourinho and Edson Arantes do Nascimento (a.k.a. Pelé) – widely known as one of the greatest players of all time – all took time out of their schedules to sit down with Mira as part of “Hublot Loves Football.” The project highlights the power of togetherness, optimism and hope that the game has on the world, bringing these values to life in the form of unique art pieces: footballs decorated and adorned by Mira’s magic touch, a true interpretation of these icons’ dreams.
“It was a challenging collaboration because I had to try to [interpret] the dreams of each one of the ambassadors [and friends of Hublot] and turn it into a reality,” she says on the process of bringing the campaign to life. Some footballs were, understandably, more time-consuming to create than others, notably the ones which were hand crocheted and intricately painted. “We even tried to stitch the balls,” she says. “We broke about a hundred needles, we went on many adventures to make all these dreams come true.”
Mira was able to reveal a different side of many of football’s greatest legends, bringing their dreams to life through colour, although she had mentally prepared herself for requests to create dark, minimalistic balls. She recalls meeting the likes of José Mourinho and Team England manager Gareth Southgate, who she described as “classic” and “minimalistic” in their way of dressing, and was pleasantly surprised to find out they both had dreams of creating bright-hued footballs.
“Each ambassador is so different from another, but all of them had three similarities: passion, love and… [the spirit of] teamwork,” she notes. “Everyone wanted happiness, and colours, and optimism. I was surprised by the difference. Even someone like Kylian Mbappé, his love for pink, for orange… it’s really fascinating.”
Colour has played a pivotal role in Mira’s life, going all the way back to when she was a little girl, growing up in Paris. “It was my first year of nursery school. I was three years old,” the designer recalls. “I would come back home from school and all of my [coloured] pencils, they would be at the same length except for the yellow one. It would be the shortest. We always had to replenish this one as I would finish it first.” She notes how her mother would encourage her to use all the colours within the box but, regardless, all of her creations incorporated yellow in some capacity, a little kiss by Mira’s desire to incorporate the sunshine hue into her works. “Yellow for me is the happiest colour. Always,” she says with a smile in her voice.
Mira is a self-professed dreamer, and her collections pay testament to this fact. From the subdued shades of this year’s Autumn/Winter 2022 collection to the neon creations of Spring Summer 2023, she’s a woman who allows her inner child to run free when thinking creatively yet always manages to stay true to her inner voice. She cites a familiar storybook character as one of her greatest muses, a protagonist whose values of authenticity, curiosity and a playful spirit align with her own.
“Peter Pan keeps on coming [back] every season, to each collection – he’s always present,” Mira says. She touches on how, even before she fully understood the fairytale, before she truly understood Peter’s words and the deeper meaning of the story, she had childhood dreams of being whisked away to a wonderland at the midnight hour. “Now, I’m like ‘What an inspiration.’ We’re soulmates, I’m so connected to this character.”
Like Peter, Mira is always dreaming regardless of the hour of the day or night. This brings us to the topic of rainbows, her favourite colour and a constant presence in her dreams – both the conscious and the subconscious ones. “I try to dream in colours, because then you wake up a happier person,” she says.
And, naturally, with the 2022 FIFA World Cup about to kick off I had to ask which team she’ll be supporting throughout the tournament. “That’s a very, very hard question,” she says. “I think I’ll be supporting the U.K., because that’s where I live… but I will be very happy if France wins as well, so I have mixed feelings.”
Images supplied.
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