00:00Growing up around so many people in the fashion industry,
00:03we're talking about all our family members here.
00:05It was very amazing to see how, from fabric,
00:09outfits were brought to life,
00:11and people felt like themselves wearing it.
00:16I started my journey in Dubai in 1988,
00:19when I landed, it was 1st Jan, the day I landed, in 1988,
00:24and I joined my family business in Dubai.
00:27We were running a tailoring business at that time,
00:30but my father and my uncle started their journey in 1965,
00:35when Dubai was just a small town, which is in Burdubai,
00:39and they were in the industry of textiles and electronics.
00:43From there, we continued running those businesses.
00:47Uncle started the tailoring business,
00:50and uncle himself was a tailor,
00:53so the family next generation joined the business.
00:57So there, since 2008, I was in the family business,
01:02and then I launched this made-to-measure in Jumeirah,
01:05from Burdubai to Jumeirah.
01:07Why I came to this place is because there was a lot of,
01:10to target the niche market of there.
01:12So that time, we had a lot of different nationalities
01:15client in Burdubai, so we decided to move in Jumeirah.
01:19That was how it came, brought us in Dubai and all this.
01:22So dad was doing a lot of other businesses at that time,
01:26and then he went back to India,
01:28but we continued our business to this, to the third generation.
01:33When we started in Burdubai, the tailoring business,
01:35I joined it at the age of 18.
01:38So I was not really inspired for that.
01:40I wanted to do something, but while sitting in the shop
01:44and doing the business, started joining the family business,
01:47and then it came inside, like, why not get into this?
01:51Get into this bespoke industry,
01:53which took me about a year to grab it,
01:56but at last I did it, and then it's going continue,
01:59and then the third generation is joining also.
02:02Growing up around so many people in the fashion industry,
02:05we're talking about all our family members here.
02:07It was very amazing to see how, from fabric,
02:11outfits were brought to life,
02:13and people felt like themselves wearing it.
02:16And that sort of creation process is what inspired me
02:19to take the same path, although initially I always told myself
02:23that bespoke tailoring is maybe not where I want to be.
02:26I think as soon as I had the opportunity, we jumped on it.
02:29I think it's insane to see how, from just a textile business,
02:34which my grandfather started,
02:36I can see how my father was inspired
02:38to begin his own bespoke tailoring,
02:40and the interesting part is he went for a more niche market.
02:44So I think over time I realized that's exactly what I wanted to do.
02:48So then I brought Embodied to life,
02:50and I think from my own personal experiences,
02:52struggling as a petite girl
02:54who doesn't naturally fit on off-the-rack clothing,
02:57it was pretty easy to twist that into a more
03:00let's bring a bespoke tailoring brand for young women into the industry
03:04and introduce something that we haven't seen before.
03:07One of the biggest challenges I faced when I launched my brand
03:11was seeing how differently his thought process was as to mine.
03:16It was a clash between a really traditional way of working
03:19and operating a business as opposed to mine,
03:21which was really modernized,
03:23very focused on how the outside world runs,
03:26outside of the Middle East.
03:28So he's definitely taught me the traditional ways of working.
03:32I tried my modern twist.
03:34I think that in some aspects of bespoke tailoring,
03:37you need to stick to the traditional,
03:39whether it's how you work with your tailors, your masters,
03:43or how you pick and choose your fabrics.
03:47I think I picked up a lot of that from him.
03:50Of course, how I operate in terms of marketing
03:53and all of that is where I bring in a new twist and he adapts to that.
03:57So I think it's a really back-and-forth situation, which is great.
04:00I think we learn from each other.
04:13© transcript Emily Beynon
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