Wekafore Jibril is in the middle of learning Spanish. The 20-year-old designer is prepping a big move to Bilbao, where he’ll soon be starting design school. In the meantime, he’s putting the finishing touches on a lookbook for his made-in-UAE clothing line Wekafore—and naturally, learning to conjugate verbs in Castilian.
Stealthily launched in 2013, Wekafore has announced itself as one UAE’s most interesting homegrown brands, offering up sophisticated, sporty takes on classic streetwear staples.
“I make clothes for people who are young at heart,” Jibril said. True to target, each garment is designed with an active lifestyle in mind: one button-down shirt, for instance, has been re-envisioned with mesh vents at the elbows. Another has a hidden-button placket and a built-in tie bar.
Over recent seasons, the brand has become ever more artful, introducing innovative cuts, silhouettes, and materials – and occasionally, even a piece for the ladies. “As I evolve, the brand evolves, too,” Jabril told us.
It wasn’t long ago that you could only find Wekafore’s wares at one of their random pop-up events, but today you can visit the brand’s website and even try it on at the Luxury Arcade in Abu Dhabi.
With only 2 years under its belt, it’s exciting to postulate the future of the brand. Either way, Jibril hopes to grow without fanning the hype machine that animates so much of the menswear industry today: “The Internet is so big and the world is so small. Time will tell which brands have substance and which do not.”
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