• 2 weeks ago
Project D in Dubai
Transcript
00:00I guess it's a natural progression. We need to move out of the UK, and we've moved into
00:09Australia. Yay! My home country! And this is kind of the next destination for us. This
00:16is where we find it's exciting, where we're getting a lot of feedback from the girls who
00:20are wanting the dresses. They're seeing them in the magazines on people, and they really
00:25want them here, and it's got to be accessible.
00:27The dresses really work for the ladies out here as well. The way we cover the arms, the
00:32long maxis, the sequins. I like real lady-like dresses, I call them, and my style icons are
00:38always from years gone past, you know, from, my ultimate would be sort of Elizabeth Taylor
00:45in her heyday. For most women, you want a dress that, you know, you can rely on, that's
00:50not going to have any mishaps for you. And that's where our client base has expanded.
00:57For me, our dresses are not trend-driven. They're dresses that are pretty elegant shapes,
01:02skim the body, hug the curves, and something you feel comfortable in. And they're kind
01:08to women, you know, and we do jackets that have long sleeves and sequins, and it's really
01:12hard to find a really gorgeous flattering sequin jacket. So we kind of, we try to make
01:18it easy for women. The local community, they took really well to it, especially here where
01:24there are a lot of glamorous events in the evenings. I saw a lot of the gowns were perfect
01:29for the evening dresses. And especially now, I feel that the taste has changed in the UAE
01:36dramatically, you know, from generation to generation. And our generation, we've become
01:41a little more, I guess we tend to follow the European trend more because we travel more.
01:46So now we look for ready-made dresses rather than tailor-made.
01:51We really want to expand the line. I think that with the dresses, we just wanted to do
01:54them, do them really well, understand our customer, be good at it, and then kind of
01:59expand into other things once we've done that. So there are plans afoot.
02:03This is where Tabs and I bonded first, over the frock. The frockage.
02:09Rock the frock.
02:10Rock the frock. And just something that made it easy. It all goes back to just easy dressing,
02:15something that will take you from day through tonight, being busy mums as we are and busy
02:19schedules. Sort of head off in the morning and we've got all sorts of events and things
02:24that we have to do. And sometimes we don't make it home before we're heading off somewhere else.
02:29So it was just part of making our lives easier. And we thought if it works for us,
02:34it's got to work for other women. We fight over what we both like. I design for me,
02:38stuff that I love. I'm vertically challenged, I think is the nice way to put it. So I like
02:45things that elongate and yeah, pretty feminine shapes. And Tabs designs for her and we're both
02:53very selfish and we fight over things and no, that's not going to work, that's not going to
02:57work. Tabs is always right. Whenever I've said that's not going to work, she's always right.
03:03For me, our collection is about dresses that you wear the dress, the dress doesn't wear you. And
03:09it's about how you accessorise it and make it your own style. We're often just taken aback when
03:15our clothes go to a photo shoot, and a stylist comes in and says, well, I'd put that with this
03:20and that and that. And we just said, well, we never imagined them to be styled that way. But
03:25we love it. And we've picked up lots of ideas. So we really let each person do their own with
03:31the clothing. If you're confident about the design and we're confident about the dresses
03:34that we're putting out there, people should be able to do anything with it and make it look good.
03:38It's a beautiful dress, it should work. The main thing is that any collaboration you do has the
03:44ethos of the brand and the integrity of the brand. And we are quite control freaks when it comes to
03:51that. So it's just making sure that you have the time to run the main label and to keep all of that
03:57going as you wanted and have the time to devote to something new. It's okay to expand, but there's
04:03still only going to be two of us, even if the company grows.