Mohammed Khoja’s fall 2026 “Hejaz Collection” was a poetic pilgrimage to the western Arabia region from which he hails.

The show presented a sartorial tribute to a region long revered as a cradle of faith, trade and poetry. Khoja resurrected that through an unabashedly contemporary lens.

The finale said it all with a model emerging in a glowing gown performing the traditional Hijazi Zaffa bridal walk, embodying Jeddah’s mythological moniker as “The Bride of the Sea.” It was a moment of theater and the designer’s love letter to his father’s homeland materialized in bright fuchsia.

The entire show honored the designer’s lineage through carefully curated tributes: a musical homage to Hejazi icon Abadi Al-Johar, known as the “the Octopus of Oud”; a poetic dedication to Dar Al-Hanan School, the Kingdom’s first school for girls, where Khoja’s mother studied, and a statement dress created with designer Hala AlGharbawi for the show’s patron, Princess AlJoharah bint Talal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, who has championed Saudi design for more than a decade.

The most personal touch came in the handwritten Arabic calligraphy printed across garments: poetry penned by Khoja himself, translating to “The Hejaz. What can I say? It is the spirit, the feeling, the dream, the beauty.”

But Khoja — who has named his brand Hindamme, which translates to “perfect form, harmony and aesthetic” in an ancient Arabic dialect — wasn’t merely mining nostalgia. There was a tension between memory and futurism that defined the collection’s material language. Mohair and silk shared the runway with red vinyl and chocolate brown leather. Metallics, which are key for the brand, evoked luminosity.

The silhouettes also married East and West. Structured outerwear in mirrored metallic calfskin were reinterpreted as futuristic biker jackets and traditional kufiyah hats were transformed into sculptural headpieces punctuated the show.

Vibrant fuchsia, a traditional Hijazi hue seen in women’s attire, injected joy, while rooted in cultural specificity. The chocolate browns added sophistication, while punches of red suggested passion and power. That Khoja chose pink for his bridal finale over conventional white spoke volumes about Hindamme’s mission to reimagine the familiar with cultural authority.

“Hejaz is an eternal idea,” Khoja said in an interview after the show. “This collection honors my layered history while imagining what its future could look like.”

This collection offered a masterclass in how heritage can fuel innovation rather than constrain it, something the Kingdom’s creative movement has been embracing at Riyadh Fashion Week.

“I hope people feel seen,” Khoja said. “I want them to see their culture represented in a way that fills them with pride — reimagined, elevated and celebrated.”