“The point of doing Fabric of Society is to be different,” explains Raheel Al Roudhan, the young entrepreneur behind the Kuwaiti online fashion platform and showroom that's making waves among the fashionable crowd.
Launched in 2022, it began as a luxe streetwear specialist and, in response to changing requests from clients, has recently expanded to include more evening wear.
“I love looking at online stores and every day I'm online searching, so it's a dream for me to own this kind of retail store," Al Roudhan tells The National.
“Our main hook is streetwear and then we added feminine, luxury next-gen brands, and saw a lot of interest in the tailored items, like suits, dresses, sets. We saw that we could tap into both, but in a different way.”
Unwilling to simply follow the crowd, Al Roudhan is adamant that FoS will only carry carefully curated pieces. “We don’t want to go on the route that everyone's going to, we want to be selective," she says.
This means supplying a mid-30s and younger client (“they have the high spending power in Kuwait,”) with seldom seen names such as Magda Butrym, Simkhai and Christopher Esber, plus new season arrivals Des Phemmes, Dunst, Benedetta Bruzziches and Adidas's collaboration with streetwear brand Song for the Mute.
"We also have this new brand that is super amazing, called SRVC. It's one of my favourites because you can wear a jacket two or three ways, so you can use it more than once," Al Roudhan says.
“I want Fabric of Society to have variables that are not heard of or seen anywhere else. We do our research, me and the buying team, and send each other brands. I am focusing on upcoming brands that I hope will thrive. When we started with SRVC, it was a really young brand, and now he's stocked in Selfridges. It makes me so proud.”
That focus on niche brands has a real advantage in Kuwait, which is well known for its fashion sense. To help her customers stay one step ahead of the crowd, FoS treats clients more like friends.
As well as the online portal – that offers free delivery within the GCC – customers in Kuwait can book an appointment at the showroom and receive one-on-one guidance through the collections. “Everything is available at the showroom and we have our own tailoring service. It's about what the customer needs," adds Al Roudhan.
For women craving more privacy, there is even a concierge service for at-home try-ons. Customers can have multiple items delivered to their homes and keep them for 24 hours, at the end of which they simply pay for what they keep while the rest is collected, free of charge. “If she doesn't want to come to the showroom, then this is for her. She’s relaxed and she's shopping at home”.
Dedicated to offering the kind of cool, in-the-know names not really found anywhere else, this service also means keeping numbers strictly limited. “You don't want to see other people wearing the same thing. We had a customer buy a Christopher Esber garment and she's like, ‘Did anyone buy it? I'm going to wear it for a wedding.’”
The team can check the system to see who has bought what and calm potential clients fears. “Kuwait is so tiny and everyone sees everyone all the time," says Al Roudhan.
Another new arrival this season is the Korean bag company Marge Sherwood. Having bought one for herself, Al Roudhan wore it on a Paris buying trip, where it caught the eye of Catriona Macleod, the FoS head of buying. “Cat searched for it, and said ‘OK, I'm gonna contact the brand right now’. Two hours later we were in the showroom and bought the collection.”
The turbulent world of retail is not easy especially at a time when even the big guns are feeling the pinch as customers slow their luxury spending. But Al Roudhan remains pragmatic.
“Yes, it is a gamble, taking a risk on younger, more emerging brands, and it doesn't always work out," she says. “We have had a couple of brands we have had to step back from and therefore we lose that order. But we still want to take a chance and take risks, because that's our DNA and the core of the business.”
Despite being just three years old, already FoS is being pursued by brands asking to be stocked, such as the in-demand London brand 16 Arlington. “2025 is the turning point where brands are reaching out to us and saying ‘we don't want to work with the big shops in the region, we'd rather work with you guys.’”
As for expanding into more dressy pieces, Al Roudhan is embracing it, while staying loyal to her love of streetwear. “We hit the mark, but we tapped into it too early," she explains. "We had to grow and evolve away from that a little, but we're not losing the essence of what we are."
