An inventory team was sent to take stock of the costumes that were in her house. The team was from the Fashion House, the Accounts Department and the Ministry, to take the costumes that she had taken during the period of looting (Al-Hawasem) and I was with them. she had shabby scorched fabrics.. I told her: I buy my designs from you if you still have it? She said to me: Mohaymn, I am ready to burn them in my farm in front of them and not give it to them! I not hand it over to them! But that's all I have! She remembers this.
The new manager entered the world of fashion and design and he was trying to explore this world as the new player entered the stadium, he couldn't wait to meet the models, doing a fashion show he was very excited.
They called me from his office and said the new manager is asking to see you and wondering who is Mohaymn, bring me Mohaymn quickly! But it was in the tone of the new freedom and openness that has been created in the country... not to threatening or punishing with imprisonment.
I met him! He was a very nice and respectable personality, but hidden morality reveale through relation!
He told me you are Mohaymn!? really? I thought you were an old man!!!, you are still young for your reputation that they talk about!!! He said, Ive been told that you have a ready-made show for letters theme, where is it? I want it now and I want to meet with the models.. I told him the it is ready for the show and includes more than 48 ready-made pieces designed with accessories, shoes, inner and outer clothing designed according to the body measurements of girls who work in the fashion house as models.After we set a date for my show, he tried to prove his management and superiority, by appointing people who had nothing to do with fashion or art. He tried to impose a person who has nothing to do with art or design, he was complains to me about politics and Saddam, as if I was responsible for his persecution. After the fall of Baghdad, everyone started saying I was persecuted, even my previous manager herself.
This person carried the same papers and documents under his sweating arm daily. The manager said to me: This was a political persecutor who needs a place by order of the Minister! Give him a work table and a chair in your office in your design department! It is supported by the Barzani party!
The new manager also employed media workers in the workshops and sewing rooms who were thirsty for writing and painting (flatter) in glorification and worship of the new director in the footsteps of the previous official government.
The big surprise was that he attributed my designs to his name as the previous director does today on the media! and bragging about empty fake patriotism!!!!! (So what has changed and what did you changed, you speaker sheeps)? At least in Saddam's time, no one would dare steal the artworks for an artist! Or the infringement of artistic property, the man was the biggest supporter of art, artists, culture and science despite his dictatorship.
The new manager has opened the door for appointment to anyone who thinks he can hold a pen and call himself a designer
And all of them started distorting and copy my designs and working on the same template patterns!! Perhaps he was suffering from cerebral diarrhoea!
For craftsmen who do not understand anything about work, and models with flabby and unbeautiful bodies, and elderly women who thought it was a charitable market!
What is really laughable is that he asked me to participate in my work and designs with the craftsmen and to listen and implement their observations and what they think of my desgins.
Apparently, the concept of freedom and democracy was taken from the back of freedom!! from the ass! And Cao blind and sighted!
"Democracy is not suitable for an ignorant society because a majority of donkeys will determine your destiny"
George Bernard Shaw
I told him: The craftsman is a craftsman and nothing more. His job is to accomplish what is required from him. The craftsman cannot start the sewing process if I do not decide on the color of the thread! The craftsman is someone who lacks the designer's experience, intelligence and talent in the design process! what are you talking about? These craftsmen I choose them to carry out my the work I design ! After they are tested and with my directives, I be with them follow up implementation from A to Z! To guarantee the result as I designed and planned!
models are bodies and shapes of certain sizes, certain lengths, and aesthetic characteristics in the face, which must be thin and graceful.. Those are global dimensions. Those are universal rules of the fashion design process.
We disagreed and I told him, Yasser, you are not suitable for this administration..fashion design is a technocratic, pragmatic process that belongs to many elements and symbols that are difficult for you to understand... He asked me what the hell did you meant by pragmatic word? Perhaps he thought it was an insult, so I explained to him.. He probably didn't understand my words, so he said: Management and design is (glass of tea with spoon of sugar and I move it in my hand) meaning a cup of tea*
I realized then that there is no common language between us in the dialogue! I said sorry I can't accept the losers you're trying to force me on! The design department is not a shelter for orphans or political persecuted! The design department needs a seamstress, a worker, an executor, models with healthy and right bodies and faces within the beauty standards that no one here obviously knows about!
You should start edit the official books that document my work done in this house, the witness and the person responsible for editing the money submitted for the shows and costumes I accomplished since 2000.. He said I will inform the director that department to do the required work!
The director of the department approved my work in that house since 2000, the date I entered the house.. She wrote me letters of thanks and confession.
When I obtained these proofs, everyone would say congratulations to me, because everyone knows that I would not have obtained proof of my work during the time of the former director of the house! Note that it is the legitimate rights of the artist anywhere in the world, even if it is a monopoly.
I wrote in the newspapers about the dire situation in Iraq, highlighting the spread of nepotism and how the minister appointed his son to the position of general manager. I also described how the Fashion House ended up in the hands of officials lacking intellectual competence. This article was infuriated by the director after he saw the article and the media started transmission outline what happened in the Iraqi fashion house.
The new manager called me evening and said, “I will bring journalists and photographers, and I want you to refute what was said in the newspapers about me now, do you understand?” You ruined my life, or I swear to God I will make the Americans armi throw you behind the sun!
I told him to do what you like.. you have to respond to them and prove to them that you are the designer and that is your work! You took a full fashion folklore show from me and registered it in your name and you bragged about it while I am alive with you I even not quit yet. What is your difference from the previous manager?? Shame on you, and now you call me, you shivering and angry?
Director said the next day: Choose any place or position in the ministry or a job you dream of obtaining, now I will immediately achieve it for you, with the salary you want. I want you to leave the place immediately.
I told him: What I am in came to me in pursuit without seeking it in the most difficult circumstances with president Saddam time, through my art and my talent.. I have never sought a position, a job or money through intermediaries, art is my life and my language that I belong to.. and my talent put me in this strong position that bartered me You are in it now!
He told me: My friend Aqil Al-Mandalawi is the general manager of cultural relations. I will ask him to take you there until we find a solution that satisfies you!
The man wanted to get rid of me to prove to the media that he was the designer not me.
After that, I've been told that some of the main craftsmens of the fashion house which I've chosen and tested had left, they were knew what I wanted for years.even my assistants Amani, who prepared coffee for me every morning and recorded what was produced and what I needed and called me everywhere, and I was tiring her with my demands and not being in preoccupations when she want me.
I was take the opportunities to attend the lectures at the College of Fine Arts.. A greeting of love and respect to her if she was among the neighborhoods.. and some of the workers who were eyes on the departments and what is happening around me.. where most of these materials and proofs I got thanks to them.. and some of the models It was the beginning of immigration from the country! They were people worthy of the place, design and art!
After them, strange and freakish groups entered by that new manager Yasser, each raising the flag of a particular party or religion and wants and demands and is ready to quarrel and scream, it was like a real farce!...
People who they do not resemble my fabrics, or even my colors, or my ideas!
The fashion house ended up in a state of real diarrhea that you don't know how to stop!.. the language of art has ended and the language of the political persecutor, the party, religion, and mediation is prevalent.
You find that the services of a craftsman a good craftsman who I did trained have been terminated every day and another person from a certain party has been reassigned!.. I ask who are you? He tells me I am a political persecutor and this is my new place! Even the colors of the fabrics changed from the colors of the academy, studied wisely and with scientific rules, changed to the colors of the costumes of the gypsy festivals after I left the place!
my costumes has been stolen, and it has been offered in the name of the new director Yasser, and he recorded loud echoes among the livestock, which made the director a star in the skies of the ministry and culture just as the my old manager she was before him.
The manager Yasser he send to me invitation to my costumes show which he stolen.
The text of the invitation says:
We have the honor to invite you to attend the folkloric show costumes at the Jawahery Hall in the new headquarters of the Ministry of Culture in Zayouna Area... On 24.11.2005..etc.
But I ignored it...
And it was like a booty that fell from the sky, everyone was practicing their democratic currency and the cleaner was saying I contributed to it and the seamstress says I made it and everyone is bragging, the manager was asked where did you get this from? He said: I was inspired by newspapers and magazines..!
The press asked the new director Yasser Nouri Al-Rawi about my costumes, where did you get this? Where did you get these ideas? He said: I found it in newspapers and magazines!
The minister Nouri Al-Rawi spoke proudly about the fashion collection taken over by his son, the new manager, in front of the press after the show on 24/11/2005.
The new manager with my costumes again, history always repeats itself.. the manager before him she did same, and after they end her services, he did same! and the story continues...
24.11.2005.
Samples of more than a hundreds ideas and designs for a single show focusing on Arabic calligraphy, a concept that was unfamiliar and unexplored in 2002.
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