RUTAGE is a hybrid fashion brand that combines inspiration from ancient traditions with innovative materials, founded by Nofar Hatuka in 2019, Tel Aviv.
The brand produces jewelry that is displayed in the museum, alongside fashion; jewelry, bags and clothes for everyday use.
Connects culture and body through fashion. Celebrating a new image through a historical and cultural perspective, RUTAGE takes inspiration from the Yemenite Heritage and it’s colourful textures, fabrics and traditions, while breaking boundaries between tailoring, sportswear and ready-to-wear, with intent of creating equality between him and her. In other words, CULTUREWEAR.
When the Jewish Yemenites arrived in Israel as part of the Law of Return, they were forced to renounce and remove any cultural identifier , physical and external in order to integrate and assimilate into the Ashkenazi-European majority that has already settled in Israel.
Today, 100 years after the great emigration from Yemen, there is an unceasing preoccupation in the context of culture, beauty and femininity. Among the many questions
that arise on this topic there is one central question that dictates the tone of the brand;
"How can we wear tradition today?"
The brand logo is inspired by a Yemeni amulet called "K'Ahab".
Its magical power is great, in the past it contained specific formulas and prayers, mainly about the function of the woman.
Today, the brand logo represents the freedom we, women and men, have to express and ask for all the hopes, desires and prayers on our hearts.
The brand was born immediately after the completion of the research project,.
Yemenism = a new and contemporary look at an ancient culture, examining the figure of the woman through time, ceremony and clothing.
Research book, 4 chapters, 176 pages.
The research project came from a personal need to connect.
For most of my life I felt foreign and not belonging to tradition.
I was looking for a renewed connection where I could express myself as a woman and thus also the creator in me.
The traditional henna outfit has always intrigued me and evoked a lot of emotion in me. I put on the outfit and began a journey to get to know the culture, this time from a place of body and cloth to patterns of behavior and perception The status of the Yemeni woman, in Yemen and Israel.
The outfit felt heavy, threatening and incomprehensible, the physical and emotional weight became one and led me to explore it on a host of its components to get an idea, to create a new image from a historical and cultural perspective.