How Lebanese artist Nour Hage made the leap from fashion design to NFT

When Nour Hage first heard about non-exchangeable tokens during conversations with friends, he was so intrigued that he started researching them the next day. Known as NFT, tokens are unique certificates used to authenticate ownership of digital assets such as artwork, videos, music, and even tweets.

Blockchain technology ensures that NFTs cannot be replicated, forged, or stolen, and that changes in ownership and value are tracked as tokens are traded online, mostly using the ethereum cryptocurrency platform.

For Hage, a Lebanese fashion designer who has ventured into the fine arts world over the past two years, mostly working with textiles, the idea of ​​printing his own NFTs had unexpected allure.

When I started reading about them earlier this year, it sparked something in me and I was obsessed with it for a while. It’s a bit of a breath of fresh air because the format is new, he said. It’s a new world, in a way.

Hage already knows how to use digital art tools, relying on them to create many of the sketches and patterns for his clothing line. Starting in womenswear in Beirut in 2013, before moving on to menswear when she moved to London a few years later, she has made a name for herself as a sustainable fashion designer creating contemporary and minimalist pieces inspired by Middle Eastern culture and history. . His interest in Arab history and love for textiles has carried over into his work as an artist.

Hage made his first forays into the fine arts scene in 2019, when he was commissioned by the Arab British Center and Dr Johnsons House to create work for a group exhibition exploring the impact of Arabs and Muslims on Elizabethan England.

The result is Sultana Isabel, a dramatic sculptural ruff made of linen and silk, colored by hand using saffron and indigo. The installation includes small bottles of spices and pigments, a reference to Britain’s historic trade alliance with Morocco and the Ottoman Empire.

I’ve been thinking about getting into textile arts and I think this is the opportunity that has come at the right time. It allows me to explore the art of textiles in what I’ve researched and what I’m already interested in, so it feels like a natural transition, says Hage. Whether it is my design practice, my physical textile practice, or my digital art practice, they are all based on different branches of the same research.

Her decision to start working as an artist was largely driven by a desire to use extensive historical and cultural research that finds no expression through her clothes, she explains.

My entire artistic practice is based on Middle Eastern identity, in particular how women are like important beings who transmit culture from generation to generation, whether it’s through food, clothing and textiles, or whether it’s through cultural practices.”

His first three NFTs were created using textile scraps from his studio, set to create colorful digital portraits against hypnotizing moving backgrounds. He chose to capture three of the most powerful historical female figures in the Arab world: the ancient Egyptian queen Nefertiti; Dido, founder and queen of Carthage, a Phoenician city-state located in modern-day Tunisia; and Zenobia, queen of the Palmyrene Empire, located in modern Syria.

Venturing into the NFT for the first time, he wasn’t sure what to expect, but Hage found the world of digital art surprisingly welcoming.

NFT artists support each other, especially women or artists of color. That support network also appeals to me because it’s something that’s missing in the fashion world, where things are very competitive, she said. It felt like I could do anything in that world and it was fun.

Another interesting aspect of NFTs is that they allow artists to maintain a stake in their work by giving them a percentage of future sales.

Basically an NFT is a contract that you contract on the blockchain, Hage explains. What’s great about it is that it is very useful for the artist. For example, you could say that every time this NFT is resold, as a creator I get 10 percent or 20 percent of the sale.

On the downside for a self-proclaimed environmentalist, cryptocurrencies have a very bad carbon footprint.

It was a concern, he acknowledged, saying that ethereum, the currency he uses, is a little less bad for the environment than bitcoin, for example”.

They’re working on it to be more environmentally friendly, so it’s completely carbon neutral, he said. I think they will be able to make the switch at the end of this year or early next year.

Hage scored his first three NFTs in June. To his surprise, they were purchased within three days. By July, she had printed a new NFT, a portrait of her grandmother based on a photo from 1952. This work was inspired by reflections on how identity is rooted in the passing of memories from generation to generation.

“How who we are is revealed to us and how we carry that knowledge with us as we explore the world, she wrote on Instagram, where she shared her work.

Meanwhile, Hage has embarked on another step into the art world with a prestigious scholarship at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

They asked me to look at their Middle Eastern collection and select textile and jewelery pieces to research. I’ll talk to curators about these objects and, eventually, I’ll put together a proposal for a textile artwork. If they agree to it, they will get it too, he said.

The first artist to participate in a new fellowship at the museum’s Jameel Gallery, which houses Islamic and Middle Eastern collections, Hage will spend eight months working with curator Rachel Dedman, exploring a collection that includes more than 19,000 items from the Middle East and North Africa, originating from 7th to 20th centuries.

Although captivated by the art world, Hage also plans to continue his work as a fashion designer.

Part of my brain only thinks in terms of design and part of my brain only thinks as an artist, so I always need that balance in my life, he explained.

Whatever the future may be, cloth seems destined to be a part of it.

“I’m obsessed with textiles with texture, with touch, with different shades of color,” he says. I don’t want to say I would never work with anything other than textiles [but] for now, I don’t see myself using any other medium.

Artist in Focus is our series highlighting the region’s young artists

Updated: August 8, 2021, 3:22