IN PICTURES: Gaza’s first female fashion designer

Customer orders for new designs come in every day from clients all over Europe, Canada and the Middle East who know that Nermin has the talent for all types of hijabi women’s clothing (MEE/Mohammed Asad)

Demyati’s talent has developed over the years from her childhood dream of becoming an international fashion designer (MEE/Mohammed Asad)

At the age of 12, Demyati would redesign her own clothes, changing shape and cut and making additions to personalise them to her style (MEE/Mohammed Asad)

Demyati is now working on bringing fashion to hijabi women, introducing styles that combine modern fashion with tradition and culture (MEE/Mohammed Asad)

Demyati realised that a major problem with clothes imported from Europe or China was the sizing - often much too small and uncomfortable for busy, active women (MEE/Mohammed Asad)

“I try to educate people in Gaza that there is a difference between seamstress and designer," Demyati says (MEE/Mohammed Asad)

Demyati admits that new fashion materials often only reach Gaza one to two years after being released globally (MEE/Mohammed Asad)

Demyati faces bigger problems with the restrictions on imported materials, especially with her customers requesting a wide range of modern accessories (MEE/Mohammed Asad)

“If we had open borders, I could bring all these materials from abroad, and design freely in Gaza,” Demyati says (MEE/Mohammed Asad)

Demyati’s wider dream is to turn a modest factory into a larger one where she can also host university students who dream of studying and creating fashion (MEE/Mohammed Asad)

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