LONDON, United Kingdom — "I am interested in contemporising the Arab aesthetic," says Bahraini-born, London-based designer Hind Matar, whose eponymous womenswear label, Matar, is now in its third season. Matar's Spring/Summer 2015 collection, with its rich colour palette and luxurious fabrics, takes cues from Arabic culture without succumbing to the traditional codes of dress often associated with the Gulf region. Take the streetwear proportions of the label's textured bombers, the juxtaposition of sheer and devoré fabrics, and silhouettes that often leave the wearer's midriff exposed.

“I was in Dubai two weeks ago and met some buyers and the feedback from one boutique, Sauce, was that ‘You are an Arab designer but your clothes are very contemporary,’ which pretty much means western and modern. I think it is a good thing,” says the designer.

The brand's DNA has been shaped by Matar's nomadic life, spent moving between the US, Bahrain and Europe. Her transfer, aged six, from a liberal Montessori school in the US to a more conservative institution in Bahrain left a significant mark on the designer. “It was quite strange going from a very open and free society to an extremely different one [Bahrain] ­— I felt like a foreigner.” After switching between schools that separated male and female students, Matar eventually moved to a local American school, where she felt more comfortable, in the ninth grade. “[It] was very international — I mixed a lot with Americans and a lot of foreigners, which was a bonus for me.”

Mater was exposed to European culture through her aunt's film collections, which she credits with sewing the seeds of her career in design. "She had a wonderful collection of old Italian and French films, which I started watching: [Federico] Fellini films that I adore; 8½ […] and The Conformist by Bertolucci, which is more art direction than fashion. I just fell in love with Italy through cinema." Her initial enthusiasm for Italian culture crystallised during an art history trip to Rome, which she took part in while studying economics and philosophy at University of Virginia: "Beauty was celebrated everywhere you looked; it was amazing and an important moment for me I think."

After graduating, Matar spent a period working advertising in Barcelona as well as with her sister, who owned an art gallery in New York, before setting her sights on fashion and moving to London. “My sister and I got really into house music and techno and fell in love with the city, so we knew we wanted to move here. I took a year-long course at Marangoni, studying styling. I got experience at Pop [magazine] and with Andrew Davies at Arena. I enjoyed it and it came naturally, but it didn’t really stimulate me.” In search of the creative fulfillment she craved, Matar did a graduate diploma in creative studies at Central Saint Martins, before gaining invaluable experience working with Yang Li, who helped the young designer advance technically.

She later went to work for Bernhard Wilhelm, whose working process and small-scale company structure inspired the launch of her own label. "I realised he had a really small team: his business partner, his pattern maker, his assistant and me. Seeing how small a team was behind this international brand made me think it was more realistic to start my own label." After a brief return to Yang Li and a stalled attempt to get a job at Jean Paul Gaultier in Paris, Matar took the plunge and launched her eponymous line for the Spring/Summer 2014 season.

Matar’s design process is led by extensive research. “I compile at least 300 pages of research for each collection. Contemporary art is a big part of my inspiration. I like to find interesting connections between things that don’t really tie into each other.” Past collections have been inspired by Robert Mapplethorpe’s flowers, Coney Island’s Lonely Hearts Club (a group of singles that used to meet at the fun fair in the 1950s), natural disasters and Ryan Sullivan’s heavily textured paintings.

Her quest to make texture a point of interest has led Matar to work with some of France and Italy’s most innovative mills. “My favourite is Ghioldi in Italy, they're highly experimental and produce very unusual fabrics. The one in France that I worked with on my Spring/Summer 2015 collection is Bouton Renaud, which produces beautiful velvets and devoré.” Working with such specialists places Matar firmly in the luxury bracket, with skirts and shirts starting at around £600 (approximately $940) and dresses reaching above £1000 (around $1570).

Matar has global ambitions for her brand and hopes to further penetrate the US and Europe, as well as enter the Middle East, China and Korea, leveraging her network of powerful contacts. “So far my stockists are the States and Europe, but I am taking active steps to enter the Arab market. Dubai would be a good stepping-stone, I have very good contacts in Kuwait and a member of the royal family, whom I know personally, wants to help me do a big event. I have styled a couple of films my sister has directed, featuring Parisian actresses, which I think will help in the States and Europe — and I have good friends in Korea that want to help, so hopefully it will continue to grow.”

Matar for BoF

For this month's Spotlight, Hind Matar has designed a custom logo incorporating textures from her brand's Autumn/Winter 2014 collection. "The lightning bolt fault line that cracks through is reference the chaos and natural disasters also touched upon in that collection," said the designer.

Next season, Matar hopes to secure two to three stockists in the Middle East and a place on the London Fashion Week schedule, through British emerging designer incubator NewGen. “I really want to do a live presentation and with NewGen it would be free, which would be great, but if not, I would still love to do one. For the Coney Island collection [Spring/Summer 2015] I worked with a lindy hop group and filmed a live performance; it was amazing to see the clothes move. That’s what I am focused on for next season.”