by Walaa Mamoun
Fashion Brand NINNIS

Clothing as a means of empowering women – the fashion designer Walaa Mamoun addresses the socially critical topic of female career selection with her work.

The self-taught designer Walaa, only 18 years old, is the founder of the NINNIS label, which was supported by the production fund. Her wish is to be seen as a role model for young Sudanese women through her commitment and to encourage them to pursue more unconventional career paths. Walaa considers her clothing brand a statement for individualism and personality. The fund helped her develop her latest campaign, “Bolder than my Insecurities,” in which each item had its own character and openly shared its insecurities. The team’s vision could be implemented and various concepts tried out. This process helped the designer to direct the focus of the collection to those places where the idea can be further developed and improved in order to plan next steps.
 
Walaa describes how difficult it is for women in Sudan to freely and individually make their own career choices. More respected professions for women such as physician, engineer or teacher, which are culturally valued by families and society, are widespread and very common. Other sectors such as the arts are generally less recognised because they do not correspond to traditional values. She aims to counteract this trend with NINNIS and inspire like-minded people to achieve something similar, even if this path seems difficult at first.