Case Study
Fatma Mostafa x Max&Co
FTA Jewelry Award Winner 2022
Fatma Mostafa
Fatma Mostafa is an Egyptian artist and jewelry designer whose work bridges painting, embroidery, and metalwork. A graduate of the Faculty of Fine Arts, she founded her namesake brand in 2017, driven by a deep love for fine art, fashion, and traditional craftsmanship. Her creative journey began with embroidery, first learned from her mother at a young age, and later evolved through her fine art studies, where painting, color, and material exploration shaped her visual language. While jewelry remains central to her practice, Fatma’s exploration extends beyond it into objects and design in a broader sense, viewing design as an rich field under which multiple forms of creation coexist. Much like painting, her process is rooted in slowness, intention, and care. Through embroidery, metalwork, and material experimentation, she transforms emotion and memory into wearable and functional works of art that celebrate nature, color, and the power of patient, skillful hands. Her work has received international recognition, including the Fashion Trust Arabia award (2022) and a place on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list (2024). She has presented her work in exhibitions such as Vogue Rama at Milan Fashion Week and Threads of Impact at M7 Doha and collaborated with Max & Co. on a Spring/Summer 2024 capsule collection. Her pieces have been worn by international figures including Bella Hadid.
Challenges
Working with Max & Co. on this capsule collection challenged me to rethink how a practice centered on slowness, handwork, and material sensitivity could function within a large-scale fashion environment. My process is usually intimate, and time driven, which required a different kind of precision and adaptation to remain true at a broader scale.
Solutions
The solution emerged through concept and storytelling. By defining a strong narrative from the outset and allowing it to inform material, color, and form, the work remained true to my practice while integrating seamlessly into Max & Co.’s design language.