“Hey, what are you up to?”, a sentence so casual it’s loaded. On Tuesday, February 2, 2026, Emergency Room and Timberland turned that familiar prompt into a runway moment at Dubai Fashion Week, staging their collaborative show on the basketball court of Dubai Design District.
Reuniting after a previous collaboration, the two brands returned with a shared curiosity about connection, between brands, between people, and between private emotion and public space. In a world ruled by notifications and quick check-ins, the show explored how a simple message can spark intimacy, spontaneity, nostalgia, or vulnerability.
For Emergency Room founder and designer Eric Mathieu Ritter, the phrase became a lens through which to examine how we reach out, and what we instinctively wear in those in-between moments. The collection imagined characters caught mid-reply: someone throwing on clothes for a coffee run, someone layering jewelry before a night of dancing, someone stepping outside still wrapped in a bathrobe, someone assembling a bridal look in a heartbeat.
On the runway, Emergency Room’s bold, one-of-one upcycled creations met Timberland’s timeless essentials and iconic footwear, including The Original Timberland boots and 3-Eye boat shoes from the Spring/Summer 2026 collection. The pairing struck a deliberate balance, spontaneity grounded by structure, softness offset by sturdiness.
The collaboration extended beyond styling and into the garments themselves. Emergency Room reworked select Timberland pieces using labor-intensive techniques, transforming them into singular objects. Entire garments were embroidered with mother-of-pearl buttons arranged in patterns inspired by Beirut’s ironwork, balconies, windows, railings, and gates that quietly frame our most intimate comings and goings. Patchwork and appliqué crafted from leftover materials further reinforced Emergency Room’s commitment to reuse, turning remnants into pieces of distinct value.
Models walked to a soundscape by Alex Chahine, charting the evolution of telecommunication from the 1990s onward. Rings, pings, and notification tones unfolded into an emotional arc, hopeful connections giving way to missed calls and unanswered messages, mirroring the tension at the heart of the collection.
Presented as a daytime runway experience, Hey, what are you up to? delivered a quiet but lasting resonance within Dubai Fashion Week. Rather than a collision of identities, the show revealed Emergency Room and Timberland as collaborators in a shared exploration of craft, emotion, and the everyday gestures that connect us all.
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