Object Timeline

  • We acquired this object.

2017

  • Work on this object began.

2019

2020

2025

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Photograph, Al-Kouture: Chanel #VII from the series Al-Kouture

This is a Photograph. It was photographed by Wesaam Al-Badry.

This object is not part of the Cooper Hewitt's permanent collection. It was able to spend time at the museum on loan from Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco as part of Contemporary Muslim Fashions.

It is dated 2017. Its medium is archival pigment print on paper. It is a part of the department.

Born in Iraq, photographer Wesaam Al-Badry and his family fled their home country for a Saudi Arabian refugee camp at the beginning of the Gulf War before relocating to Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1994. His work is often inspired by the disconnect he felt between his experiences in the Middle East and Middle America. In the series Al-Kouture, he refashions silk scarves by prominent European brands into niqabs. As he explains, “Al-Kouture . . . reveals the tension between . . . Western consumerism and its influence on the traditional Muslim culture. [It] plays with symbolism and the impact of globalization and explores the possibilities of assimilation in a vast polarized world.”

It is credited Courtesy of the artist and Jenkins Johnson Gallery.

Its dimensions are

H x diam.: 91.4 × 66 cm (36 × 26 in.) Frame H x W x D: 94 × 68.6 cm (37 × 27 in.)

This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition Contemporary Muslim Fashions.

There are restrictions for re-using this image. For more information, visit the Smithsonian’s Terms of Use page.

If you would like to cite this object in a Wikipedia article please use the following template:

<ref name=CH>{{cite web |url=https://www-4.collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/2318797371/ |title=Photograph, Al-Kouture: Chanel #VII from the series Al-Kouture |author=Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |accessdate=11 February 2025 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution}}</ref>