Story, photos and video by Alexandra Hehlen
NEW YORK, N.Y. — Michal Hidas is running on empty – everything around her flies at a million miles an hour. Models flit around in sky-high heels. Makeup artists wield brushes like whizzing wands. Hairstylists quickly mold curls. Today is Sept. 11, the middle of New York Fashion Week, and Hidas has barely slept. Yet somehow she is still smiling.
In the midst of the chaos, her clothing designs hang on a rack by floor-to-ceiling windows, the Freedom Tower shining in the distance. Bathed in sunlight, the gowns glow, with swirling patterns of bold color.
Across the globe, the man who created the wild paintings and architectural sketches on the garments watched the fashion show on his computer. We call him Ali to protect his identity. A Muslim engineer from war-torn Gaza, he risks everything to work with Hidas, an Israeli Jew.
If Ali is not careful about concealing his identity, Hamas – which controls Gaza and is what the U.S. government calls a terror organization – could kill him.
“I can do anything for a new idea, for a new concept, for art,” Ali said.
Ali is currently earning his Ph.D abroad and was only able to leave Gaza temporarily because he won a university scholarship. Eventually he must return home, unless he can obtain a visa to remain abroad.
“He is incredibly brave,” Hidas said. “And he has a lot to lose, in terms of his life and his family. But it’s also so inspiring how much that he wants to create and how much this is important for him.”
* * *
Ali has spent most of his life in tiny Gaza. Hidas transforms his vivid sketches and paintings into the whimsical patterns that swarm across the clothes she designs for her brand, HIDAS. Though Ali remains anonymous, his artwork reaches the world on flowing gowns and palazzo pants. Their collections are called Bridging.
Hidas’ and Ali’s partnership began just two years before their New York Fashion Week debut this season. They met online.
In 2014, a war between Israel and Gaza began. Home for a university break, Hidas wanted to help, so she volunteered with an organization that took Israeli children on a “relaxation day.” Hidas saw the psychological trauma that frequent bombardment inflicted on the children. She began to wonder what the lives of children in Gaza were like.
She began Googling in different languages, realizing that every result was skewed in favor of either Israel or Gaza. She knew the only way to discover reality was to hear it directly from people themselves.
She searched online for Arabs, asking them to share their stories. Some responded with hate, calling her a murderer. Then she found Ali. Though at first hesitant, he opened up to her. Shoving politics aside, their first conversation online was like one between friends. They talked about their passions, cultures and foods.
“It was like a door for us to…peek to the other side to another world that we have never been even able to imagine,” Hidas said. “And just like us, most of the Israelis and the Palestinians have no idea what’s going on on the other side. We understood that we are just two people that manage to do something that many people maybe wish to do. And we became friends.”
When Hidas learned that Ali is an artist, she suggested they work together. He created architectural sketches, which she tiled into digital patterns for garments she designed. A few months later, they had crafted a full ready-to-wear collection, on display at an Israeli art gallery.
“Everywhere around the world, people are not really aware of the everyday life,” Hidas said. “It’s above the news – a bomb over there, an attack there, soldiers who got killed.
“It’s beyond this. It’s more about the human connection. And this is what usually you can’t hear about. We found this way to communicate this message through the collections.”
Their first fashion collection had only been a set of sketches two weeks earlier. Hidas and Ali had never dreamed of creating a tangible line – until the gallery curator gave the duo an ultimatum two weeks before their exhibition: they had to display a sellable product. Hidas did it.
Hidas and Ali call all their collections Bridging, for the way they supersede their countries’ borders and political tensions. The duo even found common ground in their disparate religions, where Isaac, the Bible’s father of the Jews, and Ishmael, the Quran’s father of the Muslims, reunited to bury their father Abraham. This was the spark of inspiration, the moment they decided to focus on common humanity.
After their first exhibition, Hidas and Ali were invited to a fashion show in Europe, then an exhibition in Taiwan. The merchandise sold out. From Chicago to Italy, boutiques across the world asked for HIDAS clothing. “The brand grew up,” Hidas said. “I always say that I never built this brand, but this brand is building me.”
All the while, Ali has been watching from afar, his lips sealed. He has only told his brother about the partnership. “It’s difficult to hide it, to keep it secret,” Ali said. But for him, the risk is worth the reward. “It feels so nice to see my paintings in the fabric and the social media and the news media,” he said. “Really, it’s (such an) honor to work with Michal.”
They have met in person just once, by happenstance. Hidas was preparing for the brand’s exhibition at Jerusalem Design Week. She had filed the documentation necessary to get Ali across the border as she does for every exhibition. “And it never works,” she said. “Never.”
This time, though, on the same day as the exhibition, Ali happened to get a 12-hour visa to travel to Jerusalem for an interview with the American Consulate-General. He now had an opportunity to leave Gaza, meet Hidas and see their clothes in person for the first time.
“It was the best day in my life,” Ali said. Three thousand people attended the event. For those who stopped by the HIDAS exhibition area, Hidas controlled who spoke with Ali to keep him secure.
“After this night I said…now he has a family in Israel,” Hidas said. “My family is really like his family. They really adopted him as a son.”
* * *
Hidas, whose grandparents survived the Holocaust, was not finished. She and Ali turned to Syria for their next collection. “The Holocaust is happening,” she said. “And innocent citizens are dying.”
Both she and Ali agreed that they wanted to give Syrians a voice. Ali began reaching out to Syrians online, in an effort to hear their stories, but they refused to work with him because Hidas was Israeli. With Ali constrained by his location, Hidas took the next steps.
She began volunteering with art-therapy workshops at Ziv Medical Center, an Israeli hospital that quietly treats Syrians who have been seriously injured and cannot obtain treatment in Syria.
The patients she met helped her connect with more Syrians, leading her to a refugee camp in Leros, an island near Greece. Hidas operated with a fake identity to keep both herself and the refugees safe. The risk almost prompted her to head back home upon arrival, but she decided to stay.
“This was very difficult for her because she’s a very genuine person,” said Ariana Rowberry, a law student at New York University who volunteered with Hidas.
For two months, Hidas was Michelle from Hungary, complete with a fake Facebook and email account.
“(Conflict) could harden some people, but I think for her she recognizes that you can kind of shut down or you can be open and try to do what’s within your power to make change,” Rowberry said. “And she’s clearly chosen the latter option.”
Hidas told the stories she heard from Syrians to Ali and Max Noize, a Ukrainian calligraphy artist and producer in Jerusalem who partnered with HIDAS for their most recent collection. The men used their talents to bring the plight of Syrian refugees to life.
“We want to raise awareness for this madness, in our way. And our way is to do it positive, beautiful, attractive, and then to sneak in the message,” Hidas said, noting that most coverage of Syria is depressing.
Ali created vibrant paintings that radiate positivity. Meanwhile, Noize crafted his own hybrid breed of calligraphy for this collection. The calligraphy is English but written in a style characteristic of Arabic script.
“This way when Arabic people will try to read it, they will find something that’s similar to their languages,” Noize said. “And if you will try to read it, you will find your English, and English is the most popular language in the world. So of course we’re talking not to just to Arabic people – we’re talking to (the) whole world.”
Up to this point, Ali, Hidas and Noize had just been creating concepts – garments were not yet in the works. HIDAS was invited to New York Fashion Week with a mere two weeks’ notice. Hidas created and produced the designs in a matter of days.
“She didn’t sleep, all those two weeks!” Noize said. The mayhem continued right up until the beginning of the show. The backstage area was a cloud of hairspray and frenzy. Models dashed to and fro, slipping into their garments last-minute.
The lights dimmed. The models sashayed down the runway. The clothes shone. Then it was over. That night, HIDAS won the first Runway the Real Way Fashion Humanitarian Award for the brand’s dedication to using fashion as a positive force.
Though Ali was not at the show, he was proud. His hope is to be there someday, too, by her side. “I (would) like to travel like Michal to attend (exhibitions) because I would be very happy to see my paintings,” he said. “I want to live.”
Though he has much traveling to do, his art has gotten a head start for him, paving the way.
“Ali drew some small ship, a really small ship,” Noize said. “And I was sitting and thinking to myself how amazing that this small ship is going to be, alive on some pants in New York, in Hong Kong, in London, wherever it’s going to be.
“This small ship is going to get places. And as an artist, when your art is alive, you’re alive.”
