Asmaa Al-Allak’s memories of Iraq are woven in her fabric

Head bent in concentration, tape measure slung around her neck, young Asmaa Al-Allak often knelt on the floor amid piles of colourful fabric even as rockets whistled above the family home in southern Iraq. 

The seven-year-old would take in every detail of her mother and grandmother flicking through pages of their favourite fashion magazine and discussing the sewing patterns for each outfit featured in that month’s issue. 

While the two women traced templates on to bolts of material, Asmaa mimicked them in miniature on remnants for arguably the best-dressed Sindy doll in war-torn Basra. 

Four decades later, childhood memories like these compelled Al-Allak to become a contestant on The Great British Sewing Bee 2023, a reality TV show she won in an achievement that, for her, topped even attaining a medical degree. 

“Creativity is in the genes,” she tells Tahira Yaqoob of The National, laughing over a zoom call from Wales, where the consultant breast surgeon, now 47, lives with her engineer husband and children, Sophia, 20, and Jacob, eight.