Saudi Arabia’s new state airline Riyadh Air unveiled its first-ever cabin crew fashion collection in collaboration with design house Ashi Studio at Haute Couture Week in Paris in late June 2024 ahead of the carrier’s slated maiden flight in mid-2025.
In partnership with Saudi fashion designer Mohammed Ashi, Founder & Creative Director of Parisian-based Ashi Studio, the Riyadh Air debut lifestyle collection “fuses high fashion with aviation elegance” in styles that evoke the golden age of flying.
Ashi was inspired by 1950s airline style to create the fashion line that includes pillbox hats, boatneck collars, custom colours – an aviation first – and elegant outerwear.
The colour development alone took more than six months, settling on new bespoke tones of Electric Amethyst for women and Dark Amethyst for men, which pay homage to both Saudi Arabia’s lavender fields and the aircrafts’ primary livery hue.
He also copied distinctive airline elements within the concepts, such as the canopy twist from the Riyadh Air brand, and incorporated them in the lines, shadows and silhouettes of the new collection.
Ashi sent 10 womenswear and five menswear looks down the runway for the reveal, including custom leather shoes and accessories, cashmere outerwear, amethyst earrings and fine wool dresses and trousers, with the full range to be shared in early 2025.
The fashion collection for cabin crew, pilots, concierges and airport agents can be changed seasonally.
“It’s not cabin crew ‘uniforms’, it’s cabin crew ‘fashion’,” Riyadh Air CEO Tony Douglas told the crowd at the Paris show.
“This has been a landmark occasion for Riyadh Air and it shows just how far we’ve come in a short space of time.
“For a startup airline to be showcasing our new fashion collection during Haute Couture Week in Paris shows what an impact Riyadh Air is having globally,” he said.
For more info, head to riyadhair.com