Hi, this is Imran Ahmed, founder and CEO of the Business of Fashion and welcome to the

Bof podcast.

Ever since the turn of the new year, global news headlines have been dominated by news out of Iran,

where a recent US airstrike killed Iran's most senior military leader, General Kasim Soleimani, resulting in growing tensions

in the Middle East. Well, back at Voices 2019, we shed some light on Iran's underground fashion

scene. Iran is a country that we in the West know very little about, but over the past few years

I've been receiving messages on Instagram from young fashion

creatives who have written to me saying that behind closed doors, there is actually a vibrant

fashion culture in Iran, and they are longing to connect with all of us. It seemed like the

perfect topic to explore at Voices 2019. To shed some light on Iran's underground fashion scene,

we were honored to introduce four Iranian fashion creatives to share their experiences of their vibrant culture with us, and

also to demystify some of our misconceptions about their country.

Based in Chicago, Hoda Katebi is the voice behind the political fashion platform, Juju Azad, and Hoda opened our voices

session with a powerful talk, which explained how Iran's fashion economy has been impacted

both by an extreme regime in Iran, but also sanctions from the U.S., UK, and other Western

countries.

Hoda was joined by Sharon and Shiva Vakar, two self-taught fashion designers and co-founders

of the Iranian fashion label Vakar, who came all the way from Tehran to join us, and the brilliant

Iran-born London-based Masud Golsorkorki, founder and editorial director of Tank Magazine, who interviewed Hoda,

Shirin, and Shiva.

Together, these four challenged our assumptions about a country that is largely closed off

from the West.

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