Arizona Artist Spotlight: Designing with Purpose with Jadestorm Shamsid-Deen
Published: 04/22/2026
Updated: 04/21/2026
Meet Greater Phoenix-based designer and eco-tailor Jadestorm Shamsid-Deen, featured in GPEC’s Color, Cloth & Culture exhibit
Most garments come with a label. Jadestorm Shamsid-Deen’s comes with a philosophy. As the founder and inventor behind SWIYYAH , a Phoenix-based sustainable fashion brand, Jadestorm has spent years rethinking what fabric can be, what it should do, and what it costs the person and the planet.
The piece on view in Greater Phoenix Economic Council’s Color, Cloth & Culture exhibit is the SWIYYAH Gabbi dress, a handmade garment constructed entirely from biodegradable materials by Jadestorm and the SWIYYAH textile team. Its origins trace back to a commission from the Herberger Theater, where SWIYYAH was invited to produce a plant-based fashion show for a private event. The dress itself was inspired by a design Jadestorm saw on Sex and the City and was first worn publicly by a young woman named Gabriella during pre-orders at the event. It is a garment with a story already stitched into it.
But the Gabbi dress is more than a fashion statement. Every SWIYYAH piece is made from fabric free of the chemicals and synthetic dyes that are standard in the textile industry. Instead, SWIYYAH textiles are developed with colors and prints selected for their known medical benefits, including properties linked to relief from asthma symptoms. “A SWIYYAH handmade fabric allows me to design and clothe people while caring for my health and my environment,” Jadestorm says.
The creative process behind each piece is one of deep intention. Jadestorm works closely with each client as a custom designer and expert eco-tailor, educating them along the way, showing fabric samples, guiding choices in prints and colors or fully designing their completed look. The driving force, as she puts it simply, is herself: “I’m the drive. No one can make it clearer than me, the founder and inventor who enjoys making people smile, while educating them about today’s clothing on their skin that’s creating detrimental damage to the landfills, the water, the planet and human wellness.”
Greater Phoenix has played a direct role in shaping this work. For Jadestorm, the region offered space to make a deliberate choice, one she hopes will spark a broader shift in how the community thinks about what they wear and where it comes from. She sees herself as “an expert leader in authentic Green Fashion Design” within the local artistic community, and she is building that presence through partnerships, including with a local fabric store to display selected textiles for retail, with trunk shows and workshops planned in the coming months.
The advice that has stayed with her through it all is clear and uncompromising: “Be true to yourself, and make clothes that will help people, not hurt them.” It is a line that could serve as SWIYYAH’s mission statement. And when Jadestorm describes what she hopes viewers will take away from the Gabbi dress, she returns to the same idea, not just admiration for its craftsmanship, but a genuine reconsideration of what we ask from the things we put on our bodies.