As Ramadan draws near, fashion at every level, from mass retail to luxury, enters a state of quiet preparation. Special collections begin to take shape in response to the purchasing momentum that accompanies the month, a period defined by a profound spiritual rhythm yet marked by an exceptional economic intensity. In the past decade, global luxury industry in particular has grown accustomed to treating Ramadan as a moment worthy of focused attention, not unlike other established seasonal milestones in the retail calendar. Miral Youssef, President of Kering Middle East and Africa, articulated this shift in an interview with Vogue, noting that:

Through this lens, Ramadan has gradually secured its place as a recurring point of reference within the global fashion calendar, increasingly comparable to widely recognized festive periods such as Christmas and Valentine’s Day. This positioning, however, is relatively recent, and it invites a deeper examination that extends beyond the notion of commercial parity alone.

Based on what can be traced through documents and archival records, the earliest appearance of Ramadan-specific fashion within the global market can be attributed to Marks and Spencer in 2007. That year, the company introduced a selection of kids-wear designed expressly for Ramadan and Eid, offered exclusively to customers in the Middle East. These pieces were not presented as a formal collection, nor framed as a capsule, but rather as a discreet assortment of garments aligned with the requirements of the month. The timing was not incidental. In the same year, Marks and Spencer opened its largest store outside the United Kingdom in the Gulf region, suggesting that Ramadan functioned as a strategic point of adaptation as well as an opportunity for market expansion, particularly as Gulf economies gained momentum. Company archives further indicate that this approach was later followed by UK stores, signaling that demand for Ramadan-appropriate clothing had begun to extend into London itself, largely through Middle Eastern consumers, whether visiting or residing there.

This shift is reinforced by the 2012 «Tourism in London» report published by the economic arm of the Greater London Authority, which identified Saudi visitors as the highest spenders per capita, surpassing their American and European counterparts. At this moment, Ramadan moved from being a locally responsive initiative to a season with transferable commercial value, capable of generating returns across multiple markets rather than remaining confined to its regions of origin.

Of course, this initial spark did not yet transform Ramadan into a fully articulated season. Instead, it marked the beginning of a broader wave, one that persisted for years as an unnamed and largely regional pattern of consumption. Within certain retail environments, Ramadan was managed quietly and without formal campaigns or dedicated narratives. Select racks would shift toward longer silhouettes and subdued palettes, while the most commercially significant focus remained Eid’s kids-wear, a category that offered high margins with relatively low risk. Targeting kids-wear also reduced the cultural and symbolic complexities associated with modesty, particularly in womenswear, while allowing for greater scalability across markets.

As the 2010s began, official reports started to highlight the growing economic weight of Gulf visitors in major global shopping cities, with Saudi travelers in particular emerging as among the highest spenders per capita. Alongside this shift, the term «Ramadan Rush» entered common usage, especially in London, to describe the seasonal surge in travel and luxury spending linked to Ramadan and Eid. During this period, destinations such as Harrods, Mayfair, and the West End saw a noticeable influx of shoppers from the Gulf and the wider Middle East, prompting retailers to adapt through Arabic-speaking staff, extended opening hours, VIP services, and streamlined tax refund processes. The term gained clear visibility in British media by 2011 and gradually established itself across Europe as a recognized retail phenomenon. By 2014, luxury houses including «Dior», «Louis Vuitton», and «Burberry» had begun to invest more deliberately in the operational and commercial potential of the Ramadan period, introducing limited-edition handbags and tailored client services, as documented in reports by the Associated Press.

Ramadan spending peak extended well beyond fashion alone. A Harrods spokesperson noted in an AP report (published on June 29, 2014 and later reprinted by the Los Angeles Times) that gourmet food gifts such as luxury fruit baskets, carefully packaged dates, and cocoa-dusted almonds also experienced strong demand, underscoring the cross-sector impact of the period. The same report observed that Westfield, one of Europe’s largest shopping centers, anticipated record sales supported by additional Arabic-speaking concierges and private chauffeurs. For the most prolific shoppers, hands-free services were introduced, with staff collecting purchases and arranging them directly into vehicles. By this point, and certainly by 2014, luxury industry was no longer merely reacting to Ramadan as a peripheral occurrence. It had begun to treat the month as a distinct shopping season, supplementing it with selective products and services, and actively positioning itself within its expanding commercial orbit.

In an article published by «Arab News» in July 2011, Marriam Mossalli observed that:

Her account suggests that luxury fashion had already turned its attention toward the Gulf by the early 2010s, with Saudi Arabia emerging as a focal market. Mossalli notes that over the preceding three years, the Kingdom’s luxury retail sector had undergone a complete transformation, with extensive boutique renovations designed to mirror the visual and experiential standards of international flagships. Luxury houses had, of course, been present in Saudi Arabia prior to this period. «Chanel», for instance, opened its first Saudi boutique on Tahlia Street in Jeddah in 2001. Yet it was during the 2010s that luxury brands began to register a deeper and more sustained engagement with Gulf clients in general and Saudi consumers in particular, prompted by tourism data, travel patterns, and closer analysis of local client bases. Mossalli further highlights that «Chanel» was producing exclusive dress lengths specifically for the Saudi market, while «Christian Louboutin» offered a limited-edition shoe designed for Saudi clientele. Retail groups such as «Rubaiyat» commissioned capsule collections and exclusive pieces from international designers for their boutiques across the Kingdom, explicitly citing an «Armani Abaya» produced for Ramadan.

Taken together, these examples indicate that luxury fashion was already responding to the practical and cultural requirements of Ramadan at both local and global levels. Yet this engagement remained highly contained. Ramadan-related adaptations existed primarily within physical retail environments, manifested through exclusive products and quiet customization rather than through formal collections, public campaigns, or broader seasonal narratives.

Up to that point, in the early years of the 2010s, luxury fashion treated Ramadan primarily as a surge in consumer activity rather than as a defined creative or retail season. Gulf client behavior was interpreted in pragmatic terms, as a demand for elegant, modest garments that felt culturally proximate, such as Abayas and Jalabiyas. These offerings were already present in regional boutiques and in department stores like Harvey Nichols across the Gulf. Yet luxury houses did not move toward developing dedicated Ramadan collections, largely because they had not yet recognized this pattern of consumption as something capable of evolving into a fashion season in its own right. The global fashion system remained anchored to its established calendar, relying heavily on market signals interpreted through Paris, Milan, and New York. Within that framework, Ramadan was still perceived as a localized commercial inclination, tied to a specific segment of high-spending Gulf consumers rather than as a structurally significant moment within the industry. The most accessible language through which this demand could be articulated was what would later be termed «modest fashion» a concept that began to gain visibility and coherence as a category in 2013.

At the beginning of Ramadan in 2014, «DKNY», the diffusion line of Donna Karan founded by the American designer Donna Karan, announced the launch of a dedicated Ramadan collection. The offering included trousers, blouses, skirts, and dresses designed to balance modesty with the lightness required for summer, expressed through festive colors and prints. The campaign was supported by local fashion influencers, signaling an early awareness of regional voices as cultural intermediaries. This moment marked the first appearance of the term «Ramadan Collection» within global fashion discourse. The launch coincided with DKNY’s Middle East–specific website, and according to Savoir Flair, it represented the brand’s first fully regionalized campaign.

DKNY followed the logic established earlier by Marks and Spencer, but elevated it by formalizing the gesture and giving it a name. Ramadan shifted from being a reactive retail response tied to consumer behavior into a framework that could be planned, branded, and creatively invested in. At this point, the industry found itself divided. Demand could no longer be ignored, yet the risks were newly visible. In the years that followed, between 2014 and 2017, brands such as «Dolce and Gabbana», «CH Carolina Herrera», «Tommy Hilfiger», «Michael Kors», «H&M», «Mango», and «Zara» gradually introduced Ramadan collections of their own. These initiatives were met with both approval and criticism. Muslim audiences did not object to the presence of global brands during Ramadan itself, but rather to the timing and execution of these efforts. Delayed launches, designs that felt misaligned with the spirit of the month and a persistent tendency to frame the Muslim consumer as exclusively Gulf-based all became points of contention, as noted in a Refinery29 article published in June 2016. In response to this sensitivity, brands like «Oscar de la Renta» chose to approach Ramadan obliquely, avoiding the explicit term ‘Ramadan Collection’ in favor of descriptors such as «Evening» or «Festive» while still directing their focus toward the Middle East.

By contrast, the most established luxury houses, particularly those owned by LVMH and Kering, continued to invest operationally in the region without launching dedicated Ramadan collections. This hesitation can largely be traced to two intersecting concerns. The first was the risk of cultural friction and the second was uncertainty around the ability to commit to Ramadan creatively and commercially, given the fluidity of its timing, which depends on moon sighting. For global fashion houses operating on tightly scheduled production calendars planned far in advance, this uncertainty introduced complications related to inventory, campaign alignment, and logistical precision. These concerns were compounded by the simultaneous rise of two influential concepts within fashion discourse, «modest fashion» and «cultural appropriation» Both gained significant traction in media and critical conversations during this period. «Dolce and Gabbana» is often credited with bringing explicitly regional garments such as Abayas and Hijabs into the global fashion spotlight, particularly through its 2016 advertising campaigns. Yet this visibility did not necessarily confer cultural legitimacy. Rather, it transformed these elements into a trend, absorbed by the industry without fully resolving the questions of authorship and representation.

Modest fashion, however, proved commercially viable and strategically appealing. It offered luxury brands a softer entry point into Ramadan, especially as e-commerce platforms expanded rapidly between 2018 and 2019. Platforms such as The Modist, Net-a-Porter, and Farfetch played a big role in this transition. They introduced a low-risk mechanism known as «edits» in which existing pieces were curated and recontextualized through a dedicated visual and editorial lens aligned with Ramadan. For luxury fashion, this approach was particularly effective. Ramadan remained, and continues to remain, a culturally sensitive period, shaped by heightened scrutiny around appropriation and representation. «Edits» allowed brands to participate without explicitly designing products labeled for Ramadan, thereby minimizing reputational risk. From an operational perspective, they created a distinct Ramadan market that grew steadily over time. As demand increased and Ramadan edits began to occupy prominent positions on digital storefronts, competition intensified. Brands were drawn into the season not through obligation but through visibility and measurable performance.

The appeal of the «edits» lay in its efficiency. If unsuccessful, it would not be recorded as a failure of the brand. It required no intervention from creative directors, no disruption to production cycles and no alteration of the traditional fashion calendar. There was no need for dedicated inventory or revised timelines. The task was simply one of reframing, ensuring that existing designs could be presented in a way that visually and narratively aligned with the atmosphere of Ramadan. The success of this mechanism was not only rooted in its safety for both brands and consumers, but also in its ability to respond to a growing problem faced by shoppers, as the multiplication of occasions resulted in too many choices. Ramadan sits between daily wear, social gatherings, and Eid celebrations, and the edit offered a form of guidance, narrowing the field without imposing a single narrative. This clarity encouraged luxury brands to take a measured step forward, moving from simple curation toward exclusive pieces and testing a broader creative engagement with Ramadan.

Platforms played an active role in this evolution. They invested in the edit format by pairing regional designers with international fashion houses and by grounding their decisions in behavioral data drawn from search and browsing patterns. Terms such as long sleeves, long dresses, modest wear, and occasion dressing appeared with striking frequency. Over time, platforms developed a precise understanding of which silhouettes sold fastest, which price points performed reliably and which brands retained full-price demand during Ramadan. Crucially, this knowledge did not remain internal. Platforms shared these insights with luxury houses, creating a feedback loop between data and design. The shift is traceable. What began as carefully selected assortments gradually transformed into exclusive offerings developed specifically for Ramadan edits between 2017 and 2019. In this period, the edit ceased to function solely as a curatorial tool and became instead a testing ground, one that allowed brands to experiment with product differentiation while remaining insulated from the risks associated with full seasonal commitments.

During this same period, luxury brands identified another entry point into Ramadan through the staging of events. These were most commonly hosted by high jewelry houses, which invited clients, cultural figures and local influencers to Iftar «the evening meal that breaks the daily fast at sunset» or Suhoor «the pre-dawn meal eaten before fasting begins each day during Ramadan», or offered intimate hospitality experiences built around the presentation of selected pieces. The naming of these gatherings was often carefully chosen, borrowing from the social vocabulary of the month, with terms such as «Majlis» (A reception room/Salon in English) used to evoke the spirit of gathering and communal reflection associated with Ramadan. Through these events, brands sought to establish a sustained presence throughout the month rather than a single transactional moment. The objective extended beyond sales to include the cultivation of trust, the deepening of relationships with local clients and the elevation of in-store service through gestures of social participation that appeared to move away from overt seasonal consumption. At the same time, these gatherings were often positioned as a form of cultural reassurance, an attempt to lend legitimacy to Ramadan-related design initiatives amid growing criticism and heightened cultural scrutiny. Above all, they were meant to communicate awareness that the brand understood the nature of Ramadan and its particular rhythms, and was not present solely for commercial gain.

As a result, the way luxury brands invested in Ramadan began to shift during this period. Campaigns became more concise and temporally focused, and events were increasingly tied to specific product launches, particularly in categories such as fragrance. The groundwork for this evolution had been laid by Ramadan edits, which normalized the season within digital retail environments. Yet despite their expansion to include exclusive items and limited production adjustments, edits remained confined to platform-led frameworks. On their own, they could not offer brands full control over timing, product narrative or client relationships, nor could they sustain a season that was beginning to demand a more cohesive and autonomous approach.

When the pandemic arrived, it stripped luxury fashion of nearly all its established tools for engaging with Ramadan. Travel halted, the ritual of destination shopping in cities such as London and Paris disappeared, in-person events were suspended and physical retail lost its social gravity under lockdown conditions. Yet by the beginning of 2020, luxury fashion had already accumulated a presence within the month over the preceding years, enough that its participation was no longer merely expected but actively anticipated. This moment marked the emergence of a new and more decisive phase, one defined by the formal introduction of Ramadan collections that no longer relied solely on curated edits. A growing number of luxury houses, including «Prada», «Fendi», «Dior» and «Loro Piana», released their first Ramadan collections for the Middle East. This initial wave continued through 2022, with «Balenciaga», «Louis Vuitton», «Bottega Veneta», and others entering the Ramadan landscape, often supported by local influencers and regional faces. Among these efforts, Gucci’s «Nojum» (Arabic word for stars) collection stood out. Shot within settings that closely evoked Ramadan atmospheres, it received notably positive online responses, with audiences acknowledging the visible level of effort compared to other releases.

These collections rarely employed overtly religious or literal Ramadan motifs. Instead, they leaned heavily on accessories such as handbags and shoes, elongated silhouettes and garments with a luminous or fluid quality. Visually, campaigns gravitated toward desert landscapes, pale stone architecture and richly colored carpets, using these elements as atmospheric cues rather than explicit symbols. Brands frequently reworked their own heritage designs and visual codes to anchor their Ramadan narratives, a strategy intended to avoid accusations of cultural appropriation. Gold, white, beige, orange, brown, navy, purple and green appeared repeatedly as dominant tones, chosen for their perceived proximity to the month’s spiritual and seasonal associations.

Data from Net-a-Porter illustrates a significant structural shift. In 2022, clothing accounted for 60% of total Ramadan revenue, while shoes and bags represented 27%. This confirmed that Ramadan had evolved beyond an accessories-driven moment or a matter of styling nuance, becoming instead a ready to wear season in its own right. That transformation helps explain the accelerated push toward dedicated Ramadan capsules in 2023. During that year, luxury fashion treated the month with heightened intensity. «Versace» launched its first Ramadan collection, «Dior» introduced its first men’s Ramadan collection by Kim Jones, «Stella McCartney» released a capsule centered on green as an Islamic symbol and «Louis Vuitton» expanded its engagement after debuting its first Ramadan ready to wear line in 2022, having previously focused on leather goods.

Despite this momentum, audience response was uneven. Online commentary frequently questioned whether these collections truly understood Ramadan or merely sought visibility within the season. A prominent Kuwaiti designer, who’s also a luxury consumer, voiced particularly sharp criticism, stating that such pieces were not being purchased and were poorly suited to regional body types. She argued that consumers would not abandon local brands during Ramadan for a dress bearing an international luxury label. Her observations proved prescient. In 2023, a significant number of Ramadan collections emerged from Saudi and Kuwaiti designers, whose work demonstrated a deeper sensitivity to the month’s aesthetics and social realities. It remains reasonable to argue that Gulf consumers were, and continue to be, more inclined to purchase Ramadan pieces from local brands that understand the cultural and emotional dimensions of the season. On both an intellectual and affective level, this preference follows a clear and intuitive logic.

By 2024, luxury fashion continued to approach Ramadan through a familiar framework, albeit with a heightened awareness of cultural friction. That year, Valentino introduced what was described by Savoir Flair as its first Ramadan collection to include ready to wear, while «Loro Piana» released a capsule inspired by the landscape of AlUla in Saudi Arabia, distributed both regionally and internationally. What stood out most in 2024 was the industry’s reliance on abstract and culturally neutral vocabulary. Light, dusk, shimmer and gold (both material and color) became the dominant language, deliberately avoiding explicit religious or cultural symbols. Many of these capsules were conceived for the Middle East but made available online and, in some cases, through selected points of sale beyond the region, signaling a renewed willingness to treat Ramadan as a moment of global demand rather than a strictly localized one. Accessories emerged as the primary focus of Ramadan 2024, far more than clothing even when ready to wear was included. Handbags and shoes became the most expressive elements within many capsules. They were easier to purchase, whether for personal use or gifting, and carried less cultural sensitivity than garments tied to religious or traditional dress. Through material, color and surface treatment, accessories allowed brands to signal seasonality without fundamentally altering their design language.

In 2025, «Tom Ford» launched its first Ramadan collection for both women and men. Yet this arrival came at a moment when the mere presence of a Ramadan capsule was no longer sufficient. Audiences and even luxury consultancies began to express a growing sense that many of these collections lacked conceptual depth. At the same time, iftars and suhoors were increasingly met with fatigue, accompanied by a rising perception that Ramadan engagement was drifting toward a purely commercial formula. Luxury brands appeared uncertain about how to position themselves, particularly as the timing of Ramadan continued to move closer to other global retail moments such as the New Year. Consumers, in turn, began to scrutinize intention as closely as design. The proliferation of similar capsules and the accumulation of events produced a sense of saturation, leaving many releases without a clear stance or point of view. What had functioned as a safe and effective strategy in 2024 came to feel repetitive by 2025, prompting both audiences and media to shift their focus away from surface aesthetics and toward questions of meaning and purpose.

By 2026, audience sensitivity toward commercial intent had intensified, and consumers became increasingly adept at distinguishing between genuine presence and performative participation. In practice, however, luxury fashion’s approach to Ramadan remained largely the same, still anchored to the visual shorthand established around 2023. The aesthetics of the month continued to be reduced to polished gold tones, crescent and star motifs, abstract symbolism and the strategic inclusion of Saudi or Gulf faces. «Loro Piana» presented its Ramadan collection fronted by Saudi model Amira Al Zuhair, while «Miu Miu» worked with Saudi model Talida Tamer. Coach introduced charms shaped as stars and crescents. «Louis Vuitton» stood out more favorably by comparison, releasing its sixth Ramadan collection in collaboration with Lebanese designer Nada Debs. Inspired by the contours of the Arabian desert, the capsule included a bespoke incense creation, an incense box, and a «Capucines» bag, extending beyond fashion into ritual-adjacent objects.

Ramadan 2026 arrived unusually early, falling in mid to late February. This timing disrupted the global fashion calendar by creating a gap between Fall/Winter deliveries and the onset of Spring/Summer collections. As a result, demand shifted toward transitional pieces that balanced modesty, elegance, and lightweight construction without reading as overtly seasonal. This shift was reflected in fabric choices and silhouettes, while the dominant palette moved away from explicit Ramadan colors toward neutral sand-inspired tones accented by subtle metallic finishes. The season also unfolded against the backdrop of luxury slowdown, which had already triggered widespread creative director turnover and placed additional pressure on financial performance across the industry. These conditions inevitably shaped Ramadan offerings. Brands increasingly sought to persuade consumers through versatility, presenting designs positioned not only for the month itself but also for continued wear beyond the season.

It is notable that «Chanel» and «Hermès» have yet to enter the Ramadan. This absence can be understood through their shared resistance to reactive seasonality. Both houses operate according to a logic of rarity rather than responsiveness, a philosophy that sits in tension with Ramadan as a commercial peak and a defined retail moment. «Hermès» builds value through extended time horizons, while «Chanel» safeguards its position through continuity rather than seasonal adaptation. In both cases, the Gulf consumer exists well before and well after Ramadan, and the cost of cultural miscalculation would be permanent. Seen through this lens, their decision to remain outside the Ramadan cycle appears less as an omission and more as a deliberate preservation of brand identity.

Today, these brands increasingly require cultural legitimacy in order to present Ramadan collections or capsules at all. As a result, the design language has become noticeably subdued and repetitive, relying either on simplified, surface-level tropes of the Middle East or on the house’s own established codes in an effort to avoid accusations of cultural appropriation. Brands often foreground local influencers and Arab models, occasionally supported by limited collaborations, to suggest that their point of departure lies within the lived context of the Ramadan consumer rather than the brand’s country of origin. Yet these strategies, with the exception of genuinely artistic collaborations, are no longer sufficient. Nor were they ever a convincing justification for entering Ramadan with such frequency and density. Many brands remain hesitant to collaborate creatively within the collections themselves with local figures, largely due to the difficulty of selecting a single voice capable of representing Ramadan or speaking on its behalf. Although the month is widely understood as spiritually significant, its cultural expression varies considerably across geographies. Ramadan in Saudi Arabia is not experienced in the same way as in Egypt, Morocco, or Oman. Each context carries its own rhythms, aesthetics and social practices. This diversity makes it nearly impossible for brands to anchor their narrative in a single perspective without oversimplifying a reality shaped by multiple identities and audiences.

After tracing the evolution of Ramadan as a fashion season from its earliest emergence through 2026, one conclusion becomes clear, the degree to which luxury brands benefit commercially from Ramadan far exceeds the cultural impact they leave behind once the season ends. This imbalance underscores the need for a more considered framework, one that enables mutual value creation rather than one-sided extraction. Such a framework would require long-term cultural investment across industries including education, training, photography, production, art, cinema, fashion and craftsmanship. It would involve engaging artists, designers, and creatives not merely as symbolic figures, but as contributors whose perspectives meaningfully shape the outcome of a collection. For luxury industry to engage Ramadan responsibly, it must do so as a participating partner, both commercially and culturally. Cultural impact, in this sense, is not measured by visibility alone. It is defined by whether the experience is later recalled, discussed and allowed to influence future creative decisions. It is the ability for a brand to depart after Ramadan having left behind a durable structure, one that carries forward into the next encounter rather than dissolving once the season has passed.

Editorial team: Ghadah AlNasser, Hajar Mubarak, Manar Khaled, Danah Alnuaim Wejdan Almalki.