Dina Melwani On The Art of Balancing Family, Fun, and An Ever-Evolving Business
Fashion entrepreneur, doting mother and ice skating devotee talks candidly with Devinder Bains in our March 2024 issue
Creativity is at the heart of everything Dina Melwani does, and in fact always has been, years before she became the couture connoisseur that she is today, she was an award-winning artist and also a singer who released two singles – Google them! But her heart was always in fashion and after the Moldovan designer moved to Dubai 15 years ago, she decided to study the art in the Emirate, launching her eponymous brand in 2015, offering a mix of ready to wear pieces, available through her website and global shopping platform Farfetch, and also a more personalised couture service to those closer to home. The brand quickly gathered a following of women who loved the ornately embroidered pieces that were a cert for standing out at the most glamorous of functions.
“We’re so lucky here in Dubai to have the most exquisite parties and everybody comes very well dressed, very elegant, very couture, and thinking about what I would wear to those parties inspired me,” says Dina, who counts The Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson as one of her repeat clients, travelling to Windsor Castle in the U.K to work on fittings. “The Dina Melwani woman is elegant, sophisticated, intelligent and when I’m designing I think about Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn or a maybe a royal woman. When you walk into a party, the dress needs to give you a real confidence, and because most of my clothes are conservative rather than showy, maybe she is also a mature, powerful, strong woman.”
Dina’s focus is very much on the element of embroidery and every pattern is designed by her on paper first, intricate drawings of flora, fauna or ornate decoration is precisely repeated before they are painted in and ready to be crafted onto fabric by her skilled workers in Dubai, with couture pieces sometimes taking months to finish.
“I never buy fabric that is ready, so if you see embroidery in a piece it is all developed by us,” explains Dina who works out of an atelier near Burjuman as well as a showroom in Jumeriah 1. “I think the only way to show uniqueness nowadays is to develop something from scratch yourself, some designers do that through the cut or tailoring, I prefer to focus on the embroidery aspect, be that 3D elements, layered embroidery or the use of different materials within it.”
Dina’s incredible work ethic and eye for detail means the business has grown exponentially, and by 2022, she had around 60 employees but was close to burn out.
“It was taking a lot out of me, I wasn’t focusing on the kids. I wasn’t focusing on myself,” admits Dina who is mum to two daughters aged 10 and 11. “It wasn’t bringing me any pleasure to be honest – to become overwhelmed by so many things, and I had to make a decision to cut back somehow.”
Dina made a difficult but business-savvy pivot; to reduce her ready to wear output and concentrate on high-end bespoke pieces. “I scaled down to 25 people last year, although I have just taken on a few more now, but it was very emotional to lose the people who were so amazing, luckily they found work elsewhere,” she explains. “The couture is more profitable and financially it has worked well but at certain times of the year we do collections, such as our Ramadan Edit for Farfetch, and we just hire people seasonally for those.”
Although her workload has eased off slightly, she’s still working 6am to 10pm most weekdays plus Saturdays to fit around client’s needs for out-of-hours appointments. “Every day is different but I always make time to take my children to school, pick them up and spend time with them between appointments,” she says of her work/life balance before discussing her health. “I used to get up at 5am to go and work out but it got too overwhelming so I took up ice skating last August instead and I like it so much! I’ve learned turns and jumps already, I can be there for three hours sometimes, just me and my thoughts, almost like meditation and also thinking about work and client’s needs.”
‘When you walk into a party the dress needs to give you a real confidence’
Dina Melwani
Dina is a go-getter and talks about instilling the same drive and passion into her girls, it’s a strength that was formed during her own childhood, which was at times incredibly difficult, growing up during the Moldovan Economic Crisis in the 1990s, when most of the population was living in poverty. “I talk to them about giving 100 per cent and about appreciating what they have, I’ll say: ‘When I was your age I would have to stand in a queue for five hours to get some bread’ or when they’re doing art I think about when I had no paper, so I’d find some very old books and draw in the spaces in the corners. They have a very different life and I want them to see it as a blessing. I mean I had to work very hard for hours to help my mum and grandmother as a child but it has helped me to handle any challenges at work much easier – nothing seems that bad.”
And Dina has recently taken on another challenge; a venture into Indian couture, which started almost accidentally when a client asked her to make an outfit for a wedding. Dina was also attended the nuptials so she made two outfits for the client and wore ’the back-up one‘ herself – the compliments then orders flooded in. “I’ve been with my Indian husband for 15 years, we had a traditional Indian wedding, we attend a lot of Indian weddings ourselves, my friends are Indian, my mother in law lives just across the road so, I’ve been around this culture for a long time but I never thought it was my place to make Indian clothes,” explains Dina. “But it just happened organically when I made the lengha so I’m going with it.”
Up next is executing her first private fashion show in Saudi Arabia later this year and then maybe world domination? “Everything that has happened so far for the business has been organic and by word of mouth so maybe it’s time for me to think about marketing and maybe tapping into Hollywood,” laughs Dina, only half joking. Well, she has a beautiful product and she has the work ethic to match it so, there’s nothing to stop even bigger global success.
Photography: Efraim Evidor. Styling: Imogene Legrand
From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s March 2024 issue