What does it mean to be a fashionista today? While the word was once used to describe people involved in the fashion industry, it has become synonymous, particularly in the Arab world, with the label of influencer.
Glamorous, accessible and often a woman – a fashionista is famous for her unique style and her ability to sell a concept. They can sometimes be underestimated as someone whose role is to look aesthetically pleasing to sell products to followers. But she is more than purely a marketing tool. She's still human, and humans make mistakes.
This is the central premise of The Fashionista, the first original mini-series by OSN+. The six-episode Arabic language dramedy, which had its premiere this month with episodes being released every week, is a deep dive into the pitfalls of online fame.
Kuwaiti actress Lulu Almulla plays the lead character of Maryam, a positive, ambitious, self-help enthusiast who dreams of going viral and accumulating followers. While believing that there’s more to her purpose than working in a bank, Maryam goes viral for an unexpected reason and she’s propelled into the online world she’s always desired. However, while trying to spread positivity online things take a turn when her hunger for fame starts to take control.
“Once I read the script, I really loved the details and the facets of this Maryam,” Almulla tells The National. “I loved the idea of a character sharing the details of her inner monologue, as if they are talking to themselves. It's more engaging for audiences – they will feel more connected to the story, they will understand you more and want to watch more of you.”
From the first episode, audiences can see the character is anything but flat. Her ambitions, dreams and motivations are not driven by a desire for cliched fame, she genuinely wants to make a difference in people’s lives. However, as her story unfolds, it becomes clear Maryam's layered emotional history and complex relationship with her father are intrinsically connected to her need for online success.
“I like this element of Maryam’s character, it tapped into very beautiful and complex emotions,” Almulla says. “Through this audiences will understand her and sympathise with her, especially when it comes to the love she’s lost from her father. You see how that affects her and how she wants to compensate for that missing love with anything else, even if she doesn’t understand it – this element made me want to do the show.”
The Fashionista cast includes many well-known Kuwaiti and Egyptian actors including Bibi Alabdulmohsen, Fay Fouad, Mohammed Mirza, Hamad Ashkanani and Salwa Khattab, who plays Maryam’s mother.
The series also stars influencer and entrepreneur Ascia who has recently taken on more serious acting roles. Ascia was initially interested in the show as it was a completely Kuwaiti-produced and created project. But when she read the script, she saw many intersections between her world and experiences online to the themes of the show. “It gives a bit of humanisation to an influencer, and what it means to exist in an online space,” she says.
Ascia plays May, a make-up artist and influencer, who is portrayed as having good intentions but evasive motives, playing on the perceptions of how people in the public eye are viewed versus how they exist and operate in private. “That term fashionista has such a weird connotation to it,” she says. “And to be able to now reclaim that word on this show and what it actually means was something I really wanted to be in on.”
The show blends drama and comedy to address the lives of the characters both online and offline, while dealing with various pressures from family expectations to social conventions and even the expectations we set for ourselves. The message is a clear thread connecting the episodes and the characters.
“We are all people and we all make mistakes, and we're not meant to be clean and polished on the internet all the time,” Ascia says. “If you want clean and polished you go to the cinema, go to print media. That's not what the internet is for. That's the message that I took away from the show – that Maryam is a human being who had a moment. But you know what? That's life, and that's what happened.”
Almulla agrees with Ascia, not only is the show an insight into the very raw motivations and personal consequences of online fame but also how we as a society should react to it. “I hope after watching the show people have more empathy and realise that the person behind the screen, whether they are an influencer or an actor or anything, is a human,” Almulla says. “You don’t have to comment just to comment, you should be more aware, be more kind. Because in the end we are all humans and we are all heading toward the same direction.”
