Mina Binebine, Multinational Fashion Designer Honoring Moroccan Roots

Agadir – As the world marks International Women’s Day, Morocco World News (MWN) wishes to acknowledge the immense contributions Moroccan women have made to Morocco’s development and culture through the inauguration of “MWN Women’s Awards.”

With her many successes and contributions to Moroccan and international fashion in her young but busy career, renowned designer Mina Binebine is among the 11 Moroccan women leaders MWN is celebrating this month. All 11 leaders are appreciated for dazzling, inspiring, and making Moroccan women — and Moroccans in general — proud with inspirational success stories in their respective fields.

Putting Binebine’s work into our spotlight, MWN is celebrating a young, energetic, and powerfully talented designer whose already impressive career has many more compelling and eye-catching designs to offer in the coming years.

Artistic lineage

One of Morocco’s greatest daughters of design, Binebine has just finished her first turn at New York Fashion Week 2022. Born in New York and raised between Paris and Marrakech, Mina Binebine is now based in Los Angeles, but this week she has been enjoying the rain at her family home in Marrakech.

The fashion designer exemplifies the success a child can achieve when her talents are encouraged rather than pressured. Binebine has repeatedly praised her father, the famous Moroccan painter Mahi Binebine, for supporting and believing in her dreams.

“I owe him everything I have been able to achieve until today. Every day I learn new things from him,” Binebine said in a 2019 interview with Simo Benbachir, host of Nayda in Hollywood.

Binebine’s daily education in the art world and studies at French Lycée Victor Hugo in Marrakech were refined during her “dream” studies at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) in Los Angeles. After her debut with an haute couture lingerie house, Binebine launched her brand under her own name. At just 24 years old, Binebine produced her first fashion show in Los Angeles.

Binebine is a multinational, dividing her time between Marrakech, Los Angeles, Paris, and whatever other great city craving her touches from the richness of the Moroccan Red City sculpted into fashion for the modern woman. Binebine’s efforts earned her the title “Ambassador of the Moroccan Touch.”

A greater legacy

Not to be confused for a token, Binebine’s touch is deliberate. Of her show “Marrakech” in Los Angeles, she saw it was an opportunity for her to illuminate a bit of Marrakech for fans and visitors of the show. “I always wanted my friends and acquaintances in the United States to visit the city of Marrakech. Also, I used this fashion show to create the Marrakchi universe in the United States. It was a great experience,” she has said of the show.

Flipped in reverse, Binebine’s November 2021 show “Patchwork” at the Palace Es Saadi in Marrakech expressed a multicultural background through haute couture. The designer chose diverse models, including Asian, Black, and white, to fully carry the concept of multi-identities and layers of influence. The line simultaneously celebrates femininity and androgyny, reflecting the current generation’s intolerance for societal limitations.

Though an apt name, “Patchwork” does not recall images of remnants sewn together. Binebine blacked out the background of the show’s venue so as not to distract with the usual dazzling elements of Moroccan architecture.

Models paraded Binebine’s line of a glorious celebration of rich jewel and soft tones, velvety and satin textures, feminine swirls of strong floral patterns, and ornate Moroccan details. One of the standout pieces from the show, a sleeveless jacket and shorts made of Moroccan upholstery fabric, is reminiscent of Binebine’s childhood when she was “making clothes out of curtains.”

Another source of pride for the Moroccan lineage of artisans, Binebine is intentionally creating pieces for modern women while honoring the roots of much of her influence. “The fabrics I use are Moroccan,” she once said. “I buy them from the medina of Marrakech, and I work with traditional Moroccan designers.”