⚜️The fall of Baghdad.

 

 

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.. 

 

⚜️State security basements!

After finishing the historic show costumes 2002 which the previous manager brags with it today in Washington, I was assigned by order of the Presidential Office to design and following up the  was assigned by order of the Presidential Office to design and following up the epic theatrical work costumes as senior designer for the House of Fashion.

The project is budgeted for 15,000,000 Iraqi dinars for that period, It was a very large sum before the war and the fall of Baghdad, I've spent it on fabrics, accessory making, and costumes details, the novel was written by President Saddam Hussein and was formulated by the poet Abdul Razzaq Abdul Wahid. It's events were related in some way to the fate of Iraq, as was written on the Wikipedia pages, during the war on Kuwait and speculation about the fate of Baghdad’s fall at the hands of the American armies.

The epic novel tells the story of a virginal love the king to a girl which her name is Zebiba, who lives grieving with her cruel husband, but the novel hides other meanings behind its simple folkloric façade. It is surrounded by a strange coding identical to the situation in Iraq and the fate of Iraq after the Kuwait War in 1991 and the fall of Baghdad in 2003...

Desert Storm War of 1991

Where the king represents Saddam and Zabiba represents the Iraqi people, while her husband embodies American forces with their cruelty. The traumatic drama reaches its climax, when an unknown Zebiba who turns out to be her husband is raped. Zabiba says that rape is the most heinous crime, whether it is a man raping a woman or invading armies raping the homeland. Zabiba met a tragic end with her death on January 17, the day the US bombing of Baghdad began, marking Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

 

It was a huge responsibility for a first-year student in the College of Art, where they were working on this epic work an elite group of artists with PhD degrees and prominent cultural figures in Iraq were the musical supervision of Dr. Ali Abdullah, director of the Department of Musical Arts, the author of the scene, Dr. Najm Abdul Haider, head of my department at the college, the lighting designer, Dr. Jalal Jamil, and the musical composition of Dr. Muhammad Amin Ezzat, head of the Iraqi Symphony Orchestra, among others. One of the big names in the world of culture, art, theater and music, I apologise to them for not remembering the names.

 

In the beginning, I took it like other tasks upon me. Some craftsmen grumbled and others left the work and refused to comply with the instructions to carry out the work with the aim of putting me in an embarrassing situation in front of the presidential office in front of the delivery period.. I tried to withdraw from work and that responsibility, because if the assignment was accepted, I would have to leave my studies, and this was all that the manager aspired to, as two of the girls’ craftsmen rebelled against the implementation of the accessories and left work in the fashion house after they knew that I might be harmed in the event of failure in this task in front of President Saddam, as well as the inadequacy of the workers in the sewing department, where the work was divided into offers and this assignment came suddenly and not for me from Craftsmen enough to distribute the work!

 

I asked the manager to resign and apologize and told her that my testimony represented the biggest difference to me in this situation, she got angry as usual and said to me ((leave the work .. and I will throw you in the security vaults))!

 

I used to hear from time to time about the director’s connection to security and the state, her domination over the employees, and her relations with officials, a family connection, but it was not thought that I would receive such words in my life throughout my work in the ministry!! ... After I checked with some colleagues in the house about the correctness of what the director was saying, they told me that this director has a great place among the top intelligence and state symbols and is able to harm anyone who opposes her desires to work! Caution beware!

 

She called me and told me that President Saddam Hussein wants to see the progress of work in your workshops. A filming team will be sent tonight, in the presence of Iraqi actors artists. Be ready. Collect all the fabrics you bought and display them during the work steps. This photography will be presented to the President !

Director Muhammad Tohma Al-Tamimi and his photographic team were sent to photograph the stages of the workflow. Of the creative Iraqi artists, I don't remember their names. The work was very huge and included large numbers of participants, more than 100 people.

 

Filming was in the evening, as my work in the fashion house at that time entered the stage of warning, either my life or the work deliver time. I was forced to stay in the fashion house and sleep daily for more than a month in the fashion house to continue working by myself while the artisans left their homes, while the manager was in daily contact with me through The classic landline phone, as there was no mobile phone at that time in Iraq, she is at home, and when she visits my workshops morning to work, she finds the most beautiful clothes hanging in her office to showing off in them.

 

Translation

To the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research

Minister's office

In accordance with the directives of the Honorable Presidential Office, this ministry was commissioned to produce the epic play we would like to inform you that Mr. Mohaymn Sami Amle the student in College of Fine Arts  the first stage, has been assigned to design and follow up the costumes for this work, because of his commitment to this work, you must instruct that to the university.

Minister of Culture 

2002.03.19 

 

A booklet for theatrical work and the names of the most important artistic personalities participating in its achievement

After completing the work, it was delivered to the National Theatre

The manager told me, after that, that President Saddam was satisfied with the work and liked it, according to the director of the work's production!

Because I was monopolized and restricted in movement, and the dresses were handed over, and I had no idea what happened and what is going on after that.

We were honored for completing the work me and my manager, and as is the case, the manager is proud and honored through my work and effort, but I was happy because this time my name was not monopolized and it was mentioned and written down, which she does not like at all.

After the work was presented to the Great National Theatre, she called me and said you should go to the minister's office to receive another personal honor from the president, for his satisfaction with the work at the hands of the Minister of Culture Hamid Yousef Hammadi...where the president ordered everyone to be honored this time.

On the basis of it, within one month... the purchase and processing took place, but for whom?

I thought that I would use more freedom to buy fabrics, I aspired to modernize industrial machines and motivate craftsmen by increasing their wages, I thought we would be able to buy the cooling devices that I always needed in the workshops!

• New 2003 Chevrolet TrailBlazer SUVs were purchased
• Apple Macintosh computers are about forty devices under the pretext of working as a computer department.
• Expensive photographic equipment and cameras were purchased.
• Development of a fountain and garage for the director's car.
• Appoint friends of the manager's family and buy what they need to support their hobby.
• Allocating salaries of up to half a million dinars for each of them only by appointing them to the house under the name of the design department.
• Additional fees for meals and banquets at the expense of the open budget and other projects that did not see the light.

The manager did not spend a single dinar for the design department, the department that revives the suits, the department where I secretly sell my shows and brag about them today as one of her designs!

My craftsmen in the workshops were working on the old Brother industrial machines... and the two models were working in almost empty rooms! And for small fans! And they quarreled a lot and were not happy at all. They were cursing and cursing and talking about what you buy with the money of the house while they were in their miserable conditions working only for a living and not for the love of the fashion profession!

In the end, no one benefited from the equipment, the furniture, the cameras, or the spoils... the spoils of the open budget, except her. 

 

To be Continued...