Abadia’s Shahd AlShehail On The Importance of Creating An Ethical Brand, Empowering Women and Showing The World The Sartorial Depths Of Saudi

The founder of Abadia is determined to show the rest of the world that an ethical fashion house, born in the Kingdom, can balance a deep-rooted sense of responsibility with success on the global luxury stage

In February I attended my first Saudi Cup with a friend. We both chose our outfits with particular care as the dress code for the two-day event is to wear ensembles that reflect the Kingdom’s vestimentary heritage. And as we strolled the grounds of the King Abdulaziz Racetrack, we were endlessly stopped. Guests were clocking my friend’s flowing cream gown, which was accented with a belt, buttons and headband covered in gilded date pits. “That’s Abadia,” they would say over and over with appreciation, as they leaned in to get a closer look. That night it was like I was walking alongside a sartorial celebrity.

As a fashion journalist with 30 years of experience under my belt, I had only ever seen that sort of ‘on the street’ reaction and recognition of fashion for outfits created by marquee-name designers with singular fashion narratives. Pierpaolo Piccioli with his voluminous gowns, Tom Ford with his sexy tailored silhouettes, Alessandro Michele with his whimsical retro suiting or Alber Elbaz with his grosgrain ribbon and industrial zippered dresses. So to say my curiosity about Abadia was piqued at this point would be something of an understatement. I needed to know more about this brand.

“I designed that dress for the Saudi 100 Brands exhibition,” says Shahd AlShehail, Abadia’s founder, CEO and creative director. She smiles when I recount my Saudi Cup story to her, while we sit together in her brand’s pristine, all-white headquarters a few weeks later. “I come from Al-Ahsa, which is the largest date-palm oasis in the world. When I was younger we would sit under the trees, climb them and play around them; essentially they were a huge part of my life. I feel a sense of connection and belonging to them and I wanted to incorporate that into my designs in a meaningful way,” she explains.

Thus the date pit became the emblem of her fashion house, which gets its name from the melange of the Arabic words for timelessness (abadi) and desert (badiah). But the date pit is not just a poetic nod to Shahd’s heritage. It is a symbol of the brand’s overarching commitment to ethical fashion. “Date pits are often thrown away. So it was also about going back to this idea of sustainability. We wanted to create something that had a sense of circularity to it,” she recounts.

Shahd might not have professional training as a designer, and she actually prefers to be called a creative director, but she grew up surrounded by the craft of fashion. Her aunt Naeema Al Shehail, who was like a second mother to Shahd, ran her own namesake luxury fashion brand and instilled in the creative director from an early age a love of fabrics, and a respect for the artistry that goes into making a garment. But even with all that experience to lean on from her youth, it initially never crossed Shahd’s mind to follow in her aunt’s footsteps.

Instead, she focused her attention on building a business career that had service and giving back as core directives. She graduated with an MBA from Johns Hopkins University and then won a coveted fellowship with the non-profit investment fund Acumen. There, she used her head for business in support of economic development initiatives in disadvantaged nations; a job that brought her to places like Rwanda and Armenia. But it was while Shahd was spending a year in India with the organisation, in the aftermath of a national tragedy, that she took her first steps into the world of fashion.

“I have this vivid memory of me sitting on my bed with my computer open watching the news about the Rana Plaza factory collapse, and seeing the death toll continue to rise,” recounts Shahd. “And then it hit me, how I was sitting there potentially wearing a T-shirt that might have been made in that factory or one like it. I immediately began doing a lot of research to better understand why this sort of business model existed, and the realities of fashion supply chains.”

From that defining moment, her company Project JUST was born. She co-founded the business with the goal of using the latest technological innovations to implement transparency and accountability in fashion supply chains. But this was back in 2013, in the early days of the modern fashion sustainability movement, and Shahd admits it was a struggle to get brands to understand how critical it was to integrate ideas like traceability and sustainability into the infrastructure of their companies. So, in 2018, she decided she would lead by example.

“If Abadia was just about selling clothing we would not be in business because the market is saturated and there are a lot of people making beautiful clothes all over the world,” she says candidly. “But I felt that there was an opportunity to create a brand that is actually trying to do things the right way, supporting artisans through the whole journey, and at a luxury price point.”

In Shahd’s minimalist headquarters, the walls are lined with sketches and swatches of fabric for upcoming collections. But in keeping with her ethical approach to fashion, the CEO also rethought her production model. “Pre-Covid we used to be so connected to the seasonal calendar. But it simply doesn’t match the ethos, values and design process of our brand. We are really looking to design timeless pieces that are seen as evergreen additions to a woman’s wardrobe,” she explains.

Moving forward, she is not defining her drops with a particular season, but rather giving each collection a number, like a chapter in the book that tells the story of Abadia. Today the brand falls under a ‘see-now-buy-now’ format and will continue with its highly successful direct-to-consumer business model with an intention to grow its current 30 per cent wholesale business. Shahd notes that without any sort of marketing push, the United States actually generates the third highest amount of traffic on her website, after Saudi Arabia and the UAE, confirming what she has always felt – that her designs do have a real international appeal.

It’s one of the reasons Shahd debuted her first Abadia collection during Paris Fashion Week back in 2018 and will return to the fashion capital again to present her latest work in the days leading up to haute-couture fashion week in July. But this time, things will be different.

There has undeniably been a fundamental shift in how Saudi Arabia has been engaging with the rest of the planet. An evolution brought on by the bold and far-reaching Vision 2030 initiative, which has made the world exceedingly curious about the Kingdom. “Everything about us gets over-politicised and people forget that there are layers to each culture. Our leaders are making so many changes that we are excited about and very proud of. We are so diverse and each person has a different story within the culture,” says Shahd about how her nation is now opening up and interacting with other ones.

One driving focus in building a global creative dialogue is Saudi Arabia’s Fashion Commission, which was founded in 2020, and its 100 Saudi Brands programme. For the past two years, the Commission has been bringing the work of some of the Kingdom’s most talented artisans to the west. They had an initial exhibition in Riyadh in December of 2021 and since then the exhibition has travelled to New York and Milan (where the brands were also taking orders from buyers) with plans already in the works to present in Paris in the near future.

Abadia was one of the initial 100 brands tapped by the Commission, and – full disclosure – it was at that debut exhibit in the Saudi capital that I first glimpsed one of Shahd’s designs. A beautifully tailored Farwas coat that featured delicate woven embellishments around the cuffs of its sleeves, which I discovered was another recurring signature garment for the house.

“One of the things I truly love when working with artisans and craftsmanship is that it is beyond borders. One of the main crafts that we use is Sedu. We started with a Saudi artisan who uses this weaving technique, but when you look across the whole region – Sedu exists in many countries because, at its core, it is a Bedouin technique. So it links us, and that is a message that is really important to me – that we are not divided,” reflects Shahd. “Clothes have the power to tell a story of who we are, and where we come from and they play such a strong role in us expanding the narrative about Saudi and so these initiatives make so much of a difference,” she adds, referring to the Saudi 100 Brands programme.

Looking back, the CEO remembers how in the beginning the learning curve was steep when it came to quality control and consistency with the craftsmen she worked with. Encouraging her artisans to excel and attain the same degree of excellence touted by the petites mains working in European couture fashion houses took time. But for her, it was worth the effort and also, just as critically, the jobs she created helped to ignite in them a cultural pride in what they were making.

“Abadia is all about supporting and preserving craftsmanship,” she states with conviction. “I truly do not think we can ask artisans to preserve heritage and craftsmanship without giving them an economic incentive. Then it is about cultural storytelling and creating a level of personalisation.” This ethical approach is one of the reasons the designer doesn’t do deep discounted sales. Those who buy Abadia are supporting a larger belief system, and want to invest in a fashion house with the same virtuous worldview. It is probably one of the reasons why both Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan and the American singer Alicia Keys have both been spotted wearing the brand.

But there is also another layer to Abadia’s ethical vision. Most of the artisans practising the techniques that Shahd incorporates into her flowing dresses, tailored jackets and structured separates are women. The notion that she is helping to empower women, who will then go on to support their families and communities, is something that Shahd is deeply proud of and feels honoured to be able to do with her company.

In fact, she comes from a long line of powerful women who made it a cornerstone of their existence to help others. Shahd’s mother was an educator and then went on to be a counsellor and a life coach, while her grandmother was the bedrock of her community in Al-Ahsa.

 “One of my biggest blessings was moving to live with my grandmother when I was five,” recounts Shahd. “She believed that it was part of your responsibility, as a human being in this world, to give back. She used to wake up and think of everyone else first, the neighbours, our family – she used to go to the farm, get the products and then distribute them to those in need, yet be so discreet about her giving.”

Today, as Shahd plans for the future of her brand she is taking a hard look at how to scale the business. Currently, she has six people on staff and has cultivated a stable of highly trained artisans that reach from Saudi and the UAE to Egypt and Lebanon. But she admits that it still takes about two years of trust-building and onboarding to introduce a new artisanal element into her production cycle.

However, with like-minded ethical fabric suppliers (she crafts her garments out of the finest luxury deadstock from Italy and sources other top-tier sustainable raw materials from Japan), Shahd is looking to expand into other fashion arenas. An accessories line is on the horizon, “and people asking for menswear is one of our most requested categories,” the CEO teases. “I feel a huge sense of responsibility to get it right.”

One thing is clear, Shahd has no intention of letting Abadia remain a highly regarded, if niche, fashion brand. She has bigger dreams. “I’m so proud of the level of impact the brand has had, what it’s associated with and people seeing our storytelling as authentic. But then again I still feel a huge sense of responsibility to continue to push the envelope and grow,” she says.

As our conversation comes to an end, Shahd declares joyfully – as if saying it out loud will help to manifest it faster – “I do want to be ‘the’ Saudi fashion brand to the rest of the world.”

Photography: Amina Zaher. Styling: Nour Bou Ezz.

Editor in Chief: Olivia Phillips. Arabic Editor: Khulood Ahmed.
Art Director: Oscar Yáñez. Producer: Steff Hawker. Hair: Maggie Semaan. Make-Up: Jean Kairouz. Lighting Assistant: Mostafa Abdu. Fashion Assistant: Ugne Gelgotaite. Set Assistant: Omar Shaban.

With thanks to Al Seef Heritage Hotel.