Project Runway: The Jaffa hosts a fashion show

The Jaffa, a Luxury Collection Hotel, hosted Israel’s leading celebrity fashion designer Alon Livné, providing the setting for his Fall/Winter 2022 collection runway show, “Evangeline.” The event took place last Thursday (December 16) in the 19th-century historic wing of the hotel, following a reception held in the beautifully restored event space, The Chapel, with a spectacular 1500 sq ft top-level balcony a mere 50 yards from the Old City, the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world dating back 4000 years.

This marks the historic hotel’s first-ever fashion show, an ideal setting for designer Alon Livné, known for his dramatic sculptural shapes that walk the line between wearable fashion and works of art. The Tel Aviv-born designer has dressed celebrities and influencers alike, including Ariana Grande, Beyoncé, Kim Kardashian, Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, Naomi Campbell, and more.

The Jaffa hotel was meticulously restored and preserved under the stewardship of world-renowned British architect and minimalist designer John Pawson, Ramy Gill Architects, and a team of restoration experts.

Throughout the restoration of The Chapel, a former house of prayer, the team painstakingly unveiled fourteen mosaic windows, a decorative plaster dove, and the original paint, now providing the backdrop for The Jaffa’s unique event and meeting space. Choosing this setting for Alon Livné’s new collection, with its dramatic, sculptural, and ultra-feminine style, was influenced by the hotel’s grand design, housed in a neo-classical building of a 19th-century French hospital.

Alon Livné’s Fall/Winter 2022 collection is inspired by the famous Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí, using organic shapes from nature and the deep blue sea. “Evangeline,” the collection’s name, is derived from a fictional woman in the name-sake song by the Cocteau Twins, one of Livné’s favorite bands.

The show was part of a series of special events where various creatives are given the “key” to The Chapel, one of the most coveted areas of the hotel, to host a private event according to their vision. And that’s another creative way hotels in Israel are trying to cope with the ongoing lack of inbound tourists during these difficult times of pandemic.