Link: https://www.voguearabia.com/article/making-olivia-rodrigo-palestinian-dress-by-nol-collective

Last week, Rodrigo inaugurated her Daisy Chains music festival in a minidress by Nöl Collective, embroidered with birds and flowers by artisans working in the West Bank. Mjalli founded the collective in 2020, working with women's cooperatives, sewing workshops and individual embroiderers on garments that conserve traditional craft. But slow craftsmanship under occupation comes with constraints that make even the most ordinary parts of fashion, from sourcing to shipping, especially unstable. “We are unique in the sense that we have unfathomable restrictions in our movement and what we can do,” says Mjalli. Slow fashion has become a luxury proposition elsewhere in the industry, but in Palestine, the politics are embedded in the condition of being able to work at all.

Nöl Collective works almost exclusively in natural fibres imported from abroad. In the same week that Rodrigo made contact, a shipment of naturally dyed handwoven wool ordered from India for its autumn collection was held for months by Israeli customs, then destroyed. Mjalli then attempted to drive to Jerusalem to source replacement fabric, only to be turned back when the army closed the roads out of Ramallah. “I wish I could say that one’s rare,” she says, “but it’s not that uncommon”. It almost became the collective’s end point; “I was genuinely like, maybe we should stop, maybe this is our last effort. I was just so tired”. But Rodrigo’s commission “was like divine intervention,” she adds, “obstacles are always going to be there, but if you can adapt you will be rewarded. I rise and I rise and I rise”.