Dubai-based fashion designer Faiza Bouguessa poured all her affection for the city’s Jumeirah neighborhood into a new collaboration with the luxury hotel group bearing the same name.
It marks a first step into fashion for the Jumeirah hotel group, also foreshadowing further forays into retail, and the Bouguessa label’s first project in hospitality, though incidentally, its founder was a flight attendant on Emirates earlier in her career.
“Fashion is about lifestyle. It’s not only about product,” Bouguessa said in an interview, revealing the project exclusively to WWD. “You always connect what you purchase or what you wear to where you’re going.”
The items she designed, including a T-shirt, cap and jersey jumper, were inspired by her nostalgia for the storied residential neighborhood, prized for its sandy beaches, leisurely pace and community spirit.
Dubbed Jumeirah Heritage Club, the collection is to be unveiled Thursday at an event at the Commodore Club in Dubai. Initially it will be available for purchase at Boughessa’s showroom and online store with worldwide shipping ahead of a wider commercial rollout in 2026 across retail stores at Jumeirah properties.
The partners are also mulling an experiential pop-up to showcase the co-branded effort.
A men’s look from the Jumeirah Heritage Club capsule by Bouguessa.
Michael Grieve, chief brand officer of Jumeirah hotel group, said the fashion foray fits into his “recontextualizing” of the brand for a “modern, contemporary customer and guest, which is reflective of the lifestyle you find here in Dubai, but also that luxury mindset that we have across the world, along with Faiza.”
One of a growing cadre of fashion executives conscripted by the booming hospitality sector, Grieve acknowledged that moving into fashion means “a whole new game and a new set of rules.”
“We have absolute provenance and credibility in luxury hospitality, and now we have a partner in Faiza taking us into the fashion set in a very authentic way,” he said in an interview. “I think it will reaffirm the core values of Jumeirah, one of which is community.”
Grieve said Jumeirah and Bougessa share “the same attention to detail and craft. Everything is intentional. Every design, every detail is there for a reason.”
Since launching her brand in 2014 with elegantly tailored abayas, and with Roland Mouret as her mentor, Bouguessa has expanded her ready-to-wear offering for executive women, focused on masculine-influenced suiting, dresses and a smattering of accessories.
The brand’s renown has been fanned by the likes Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, who has sported a Bouguessa abaya as a long duster.
The casual oriented range for Jumeirah hotels further expands the wearing occasions her brand caters to, along with opening up the brand to men via unisex styles like caps and T-shirts.
Prices range from about 93 euros for caps up to 283 euros for a half-zip pullovers.
“You can have a very busy lifestyle in Dubai during the week and then on the weekend, we can have a slower lifestyle when we visit Jumeirah, have a nice lunch with family or an amazing all-day brunch in one of the Jumeirah properties,” Bouguessa said.
Her mood board for the heritage line boasts faded photos of so-called Old Jumeirah in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s, before Dubai’s development boom that transformed the desert city into a finance center, vital transportation hub and booming holiday paradise.
While some of the midcentury villas remain, the Jumeirah neighborhood now hosts a concentration of luxury hotels, including the new beachside Jumeirah Marsa Al Arab, which boasts an array of international eateries including Kinugawa, The Bombay Club by chef Manav Tuli, Rialto Club and Pierre Hermé Paris.
Founded in 1997 and state owned, the Jumeirah hotel group operates more than 30 properties across the Middle East, Europe and Asia.
Grieve said Bouguessa‘s and Jumeirah’s stories intertwine as an expression of Dubai’s ambitions: “Local heroes growing into global champions, which is exciting.”
