Making Shapes With Homewares Designer Sabrina Elaouad
Homewares designer Sabrina Elaouad, offers up a masterclass in multi-tasking as she navigates a ceramics start-up business, motherhood and two rowdy pups
A collection of beautifully handmade candle holders, incense burners, ashtrays, crockery, vases and decorative bowls are lined up on the shelves of Sabrina’s Elaouad’s studio when we catch up for a chat about her new venture. The warm, earthy hues of the carefully curated ceramics are broken up every now and again with a stunning colour popping vessel, but what’s most striking is the fluid, non-perfect lines of the items – giving each piece of work a wonderful feeling of uniqueness. Where so many homeware brands thrive for an aesthetic that holds perfection as supreme, Sabrina has leaned into a soft organic style that is contemporary and eye-catching.
“That was something that took me quite a long time to get to because I’m a real perfectionist,” laughs the mother-of-one to Elias, nine. “When I started, I was building a new skill and trying to make everything perfect, but you really can’t when hand building clay, and I learned that the hard way! I just had to get comfortable with stepping back from those clean lines and things looking polished, and realised I actually didn’t want my pieces to look clean and mass produced, I want each piece to look handmade, natural and organic.”
The launch of Oum Ceramics at the end of last year has been a dream in the making for over two years, Sabrina, who is of British-Algerian heritage, first tried her hand at ceramics as a hobby just before the pandemic lockdown, and then, after losing her job as a visual merchandiser during Covid-19 she started spending more and more time perfecting her new hobby.
“I actually didn’t want my pieces to look clean and mass produced, I want each piece to look handmade”
“I’ve always been a really creative person, especially when it comes to making things physically with my hands,” explains Sabrina, who studied Jewellery Design at London Metropolitan University and worked as a jewellery designer and maker for a number of years after completing her degree, with her handmade creations being sold at Selfridges in London. She eventually moved into window dressing and working on large-scale in-store installations at Selfridges and Harvey Nichols in London before moving to Dubai in 2012 and starting her career in visual merchandising. “Even with the VM jobs, I would still paint, make Macromi wall hangings for the house or just build things and do DIY in my spare time, I always had a creative outlet. Then I started seeing more and more ceramics studios popping up and more stuff on my socials and it really struck a chord with me,” says Sabrina who had tried basic clay work as a child. “I remember the first vase I made at school, I was about nine, and to this day, I remember I really loved it.”
With Covid-19 lockdown in full swing and no studio classes to attend, Sabrina set up a work station table and tools in her spare bedroom and watched countless YouTube videos to self-teach herself how to make everything from bowls to candle holders. Fast forward to 2023 and Sabrina had up-dated her equipment, had an array of designs, set up and Instagram profile and invested in her own kiln, which now takes up the family garage. “I was having to wait two weeks sometimes to get my designs fired at the studio I had been using, so my husband Adil encouraged me to make the leap and that’s when it became real,” remembers Sabrina, who exclusively uses materials that are environmentally conscious and sends all her items out in sustainable, non-plastic packaging. “Then people started buying my stuff so I officially set up a business last year.”
And so, Oum Ceramics was born, the name itself carefully thought out. “With so many nationalities in the UAE, I wanted a name that rolled off the tongue easily regardless of your mother tongue, but also a name that had a connection to the region – oum being the Arabic word for mother,” explains Sabrina. “It’s also personal to me being a mother, so there is that sentimental aspect, and visually I love it because it’s a short word, and the letters have smooth curved lines.”
Sabrina explains that she carefully sketches each item before she starts the hand building process and inspiration comes in all shapes and forms, it could be a detail she has seen in a building or a chair either in person or online, or even something within the nature of her UAE surroundings. “The blend of culture, architecture and natural beauty in Dubai and the UAE are pretty amazing, but its the desert that forever impresses me and has me coming back to it time and time again for inspiration, with its array of beige tones, endless organic curved formations as well as the texture of the sand – hence most of the clay I use includes a heavy amount of grog which gives it a sandy look and feel.”
As well as learning a whole new skill working with clay, there was then the challenge of navigating the start-up world that required Sabrina to singlehandedly be everything from CEO and designer to head of production and social media manager of Oum Ceramics, all while being a mum, wife and also looking after Beagle Baloo and foster Salukicross Remi. How does she balance everything?
“I don’t know that I do balance it,” she says frankly. “I always feel like I never have enough time in the day and I always feel like I could be doing more but I’m slowly learning to just believe in the timing of everything. When you have a kid, I don’t know if you have full balance, but I’m just working to the best of my ability. Maybe this is what balanced looks like.”
Sabrina’s typical day starts at 6.30am, making the family breakfast and packed lunches before walking the dogs, then heading to a pilates, gym or boxing session, finally sitting down in the studio at 9.30am. She can work into the early hours when she has a large order of products to make but she stops work to spend time with Elias when he’s back from school until he goes to bed. “I see more of Elias 100 per cent, and I have no commuting to do so I have more time than I did with my job, and I love what I’m doing so, even the late working two or three times a week doesn’t feel like a chore because I really want to crack on with it,” says Sabrina of the positives of being her own boss. “I think I would have just carried on doing it as a hobby, even if I hadn’t chosen to make a career out of it. So even though the start up was challenging and I couldn’t have done it without my support system, I would encourage other women to go for it if they are really passionate about something.”
Sabrina, who has recently worked on a collaboration with Gosha, producing bespoke large-scale vases for the brand’s flower designs, is now preparing to host a tile making workshop at a local ceramics studio, putting the finishing touches to her new website, is in talks with a gallery space at Alserkal Avenue to sell her designs and is working on some brand new products. She’s putting in the long hours for sure, and they’re paying off as the client base continues to grow.
For more information, visit oumceramics.my.canva.site
Images supplied
From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s April 2024 issue