Salaries in the fashion house were not paid and distributed in an equal way or according to a specific law! Each according to its importance to the manager and the benefit of it.
For me, as the only designer of the fashion house and chief of the craftsmen, I used to take my salary in a fixed form, commensurate with the rest of the employees to the curious onlookers from the outside, but from the inside it was spent in the form of additional rewards for the production of dresses, pieces and artworks.
Those salaries were from the president's office budget and not from the manager own pocket.
I used to charge 300,000 Iraqi dinars for each design, in addition to the wages of the drivers who alternate the way I was transported from college, to the fashion house, and back. There is no fashion design field in Iraq in that time, even the College of Fine Arts and the Institute of Fine Arts in Iraq lacked a fashion design department until my graduation in 2006! that feelings always succeeds and achieves something new.
This was the first reason why my college professors did not understand my work! Where I was working in a new field that did not exist in college! And they tell me that there is no fashion design branch here in college!.
After completing the costumes of the historical show, the second night after the thousandth for the annual Babylon Festival. I done the Arabic letter show, a folkloric costume in which the Arabic letters were I took advantage of spirit of the letter was extracted to dynamically wraps the woman's body. The purpose of the work was not to sell!
After designing and completing more than 44 pieces, (full view) they all disappeared suddenly and after a week's leave of absence for the manager!
After the vacation, she asked me to work on it one more time.
A few days later, one of the models visited meto my office and whispered a secret to my ear: , don't tell anyone, please.. We were on vacation with the manager in the UAE, through which all your works were sold. ! Each piece sold for $3000! That is, the total profit for all the pieces is equivalent to 132,000 dollars! This amount in pre-war time was a very large amount! And the manager didn't tell me that! If I asked her, she would have denied or threatened security vaults!
My desgins were sold, and I did not know about this. I did not even get a letter of thanks or proof of the sold work. This is the director’s policy, the aim of which is to rob the designer of his rights in full, and there is no proof of the work..
There is no opportunity to claim his rights.. The intention of this policy is to weaken the designer’s thorn in front of the big companies or laboratories in the event of obtaining a tempting offer or thinking of escaping abroad! It strips the designer from documenting his work or even owning an official book praising his achievement or work, and he is denied travel after linking his position on military service in front of the conscription department to his work at the Fashion House, which is affiliated with the Iraqi presidential office!
I started again to produce a work for the fonts, but this time in a larger and faster way... and this was a few months before the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
03.19.2003 Iraq was invaded, It was the beginning of a new phase of hell...where you get used to the smell of death all over!
The old costumes were stolen and burned some, but the manager kept the new costumes, historical costumes that were designed, completed and worked on from the summer of 2000 to September 22, 2002, the opening date of the annual Babylon International Festival, including the costumes for the Arabic letter in her home.. I am not talking about old, shabby clothes!
1.05.2003 The war ended and things started to take a different direction in the name of freedom and after the Baath party regime and dictatorship.. and holding the influential people to account for the former official regime!
I resumed working on the pieces again.. it's was the job, which I love.
The manager remained in her position and activity for nearly a year after the end of the war 01.05.2003
The Fashion House was transferred to the Ministry of Culture because the presidential office no longer exists!
Mobile technology has entered Baghdad, and there is no longer any censorship or threat to the filming of my work
Or my own designs, and the camera was built into the Nokia devices at the time.. I found it an opportunity to document what I could document through the mobile camera.
In 2004 I finished making more than 49 Arab gowns with innovative accessories and even shoes.. It was a dream for the manager to prove her presence in the fashion house as a successful manager with her new color as a person has no link with the previous dictatorial regime ... especially after she sold the previous set!
If I did not have those pictures and documents, maybe she would say this is her designs as well!
This is was the first opportunity to photograph my new work inside the house after the fall of Baghdad after entering mobile technology with the Nokia 7610
2004
Surprisingly, her secretary, was the first to tell about her the de-Baathification committees, and she attached documents to the presidential office for them! She was offended by how she was fired from the job because of the Ba'ath party, while the director remained in her job! So, every one reported his affiliation to the Baath and announced it before the new government!
The began the process of changing their skins, some wearing the veil of humility, and others changed from a fierce dictator to a friendly ! Some are looking for a party or a recommendation to take a position or a good financial salary, and some are good at cajoling to get opportunities they would not even dreaming of if, Glory be to the change of conditions!
The era of culture and science ended, and Iraq entered the stage of backwardness and the colorful Iranian hybrid religion.
Where strange strange religious rites have become the dominant force in people's minds people have gone crazy in the name of the wrong concept of religion!But the spread was slow.
This is the last try from my manager to stay in her position, but to no avail.
Translation
Reference to the numbered book of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 16187 in 2005/6/8 Who is asking for the opinion of the fashion house in the charity market that patronizes the jordanian Princess Basma Bint Talal, A group of traditional costumes, copies of antiquities I visited the Iraqi ambassador in Amman to coordinate the aforementioned activity I note that the ambassador's wife has noted out the absence of Iraq's, without participation while foreign and Arab countries participated and it has booked a site to participate in the upcoming market that will be held next 22 September. I suggest you to send costumes and traces copies if you assign that.
She Sign in the black pen to the minister.
Minister wrote to the new manager in red pen ( please reading statement).
the new manager wrote to me in the green pen. (to the designer Mr. Mohaymn complete the topic and done it, please). and new Minister immediate retirement her.
I continued to produce designs for the house in an optimistic manner, and I began to feel some freedom and peace and a dream of a distant future..but it was in vain..
It has become of paramount importance my studies in college, and there is no fear from the security of dictator and prisons (the safes)..and the rule of Pharaoh is no longer looming on the horizon!
Until my clash with the new administration! Year 2005 - 2006
Some of my designs and the implementation of them, for the theme of letters show..
