SELECTS: Egypt's Aya Mohamed Revisits Her Fashion Week Style Diary

Aya Mohamed, also known as @milanpyramid, is an Egyptian, Milan-based freelance creative producer and cultural curator. You might recognise her for her colour-saturated outfits and sharp styling, or from the film curation and community-driven screenings she builds through Darna Cinema.

Like many creatives, Aya’s route into fashion was anything but linear. She grew up watching two distinct style languages at home: a father with an eye for sharp, now-vintage sports-luxe pieces, and a mother whose wardrobe leaned more experimental and edgy. By high school, “I looked different every couple of weeks. I constantly experimented with my style to explore what felt like my identity,” Aya shares. She cycled through aesthetics from the classic emo-phase to eventually exploring street, hip-hope style.

A major turning point came when Mohamed started wearing a hijab at the end of school. As Aya explains, “I needed to figure out how I was going to make this stylish and feel authentic to me. Especially since I've never worn it before and am the only one in my family that wears it.” It pushed her to rethink silhouette, proportion, and what visibility can look like.

While navigating this style evolution, she started a blog where she shared her experience navigating the tension between European fashion codes and modest dressing. “How do I combine dressing codes that reflect my values with what I am most familiar with growing up in Italy, because at the end of the day, I never grew up in a Middle Eastern or Muslim country?” This question was especially powerful when in 2017 very few people in Italy were publicly speaking about these seemingly contradictory things – especially in the fashion world.

As her platform grew, so did the clarity of her aesthetic: unapologetically colourful, comfortable, yet built to challenge the flattening stereotypes placed on Muslim women. “I was a completely different image from what [European’s] stereotype was of hijabi women. I was doing a full face of makeup, full glam, very colorful outfits. And that's when major fashion houses started to notice me,” Aya reflects.

Her first Fashion Week invite came from Valentino in 2020. When Valentino’s PR first DM’d her on Instagram, she assumed it was fake: “I thought, no, this is like a joke… this person is probably making fun of me.” Then the follow-up landed from an official Valentino email, and it clicked. It became her first-ever fashion show – surreal, masked up, and “very weird” in the peak of COVID, but unforgettable.

Since then, fashion week has been equal parts glamour and logistics: her home turning into a staging area, accessories laid out so nothing gets forgotten, outfits pre-built with every detail preplanned. “You have to be prepared since the pace is unforgiving. Sometimes I’m changing in the car, in the back office, or at a bathroom coffee shop,” she says. It’s chaotic and exhausting.

Reminiscing on the incredible past few years, there’s a particular beauty to the way a city shifts for Fashion Week. It’s a moment when identity and whimsy get pushed to their extremes. The streets turn into a catwalk, and those neon red shoes that would usually draw stares become just one of many bold choices moving through the crowd.

In honour of the upcoming Milan Fashion week, in this week's SELECTS, Aya breaks down some of her favourite looks from past fashion weeks.

Look 1 | Milan Launch of Prada Triangle 2022
“Fun fact those shoes did not end up getting mass produced, they stayed in the archive as part of the look but they were sold in another style. I still wear the bag every time I travel because of how comfortable it is for quick access and surprisingly matches everything.”

Prada Hijab
Prada Jacket SS2022
COS DressPrada Shoes
Prada Bag
LOOK 2 | Milan FW 2022
“I can’t remember if this was entering or leaving the Gucci show, all I remember was wearing the best suit I ever wore. I am the most at ease in more androgynous looks, even boyish. But I tend to wear lots of girly things when it comes to fashion week and focus a lot on layering.”

Gucci | Full Look
LOOK 3 | Paris FW 2022
“The amazing boots were actually from my mom’s 90’s collection and they survived surprisingly well.”

Sahar By Modestmira | Silk Scarf
Loewe | Belt corset
Burberry | Bag
Maisonkitsune | Bomber Jacket
Acne Studio | Skirt and Shirt Set
Voodoo Jewels | Accessories

LOOK 4 | London FW 2024
“This time I was styled by an amazing team that I feel like captured my playful essence when it comes to fashion. The full look was Gucci except the scarf I had actually bought in Egypt in a small shop because it's so hard to find hijabs in Italy.”

Gucci | Full Look
Hijab Scarf I Small Egyptian Shop

Look 5 | Milan FW 2024
“Colors, color, color is my favourite thing! The full look was prada and I’m still trying to figure out where I can buy those golden boots.”

Prada | Full look