Brand ambassador, Middle East luxury business developer, official spokeswoman for the Arab Fashion Council, TV presenter and philanthropist Lara Tabet launched her platform for start-ups, Arab Fashion Preneur, at Shangri-La Hotel Dubai recently, an event that drew a host of Arab entrepreneurs.
Lara opens up on what Arab Fashion Preneur is all about.
What is Arab Fashion Preneur?
Arab Fashion Preneur is a platform for start-ups as well as for established businesses looking to connect with customers, distributors, partners and potential investors in the region and worldwide. It is a platform that highlights new trends, technologies and innovative business models that will transform the industry in the future.
It will be a networking platform hosting regional events as well as local and international workshops, conferences, seminars and fashion shows. It will continue to develop a fashion and entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Middle East where the average spend per person on fashion is amongst the highest in the world. It will be signing up with partners in the region as well as showcasing a calendar of events that will be published on its website.
How was the idea conceived to set up Arab Fashion Preneur?
Having spent several years assisting luxury brands, I realised this gap is real and wanted to find a way to more efficiently effectively help them out in this very important area.
Tell us more about your journey to get to this point.
My journey started at a very young age, where I worked in the family business, which is in the hotels and hospitality area, until I was headhunted by an English language TV station that was set up here in the region, and where I had several shows of my own that I presented or produced.
I have conducted over 7,000 interviews with celebrities form all over the world. Then I started being approached by different luxury brands looking for a brand ambassador to represent them in this region, which is how I came up with my brand luxurywithlara that represents many different brands from all over the world. We are going to be present in all the major fashion capitals such as Milan, Paris, London and New York, because our model will mirror the international nature of fashion.
In what direction is the fashion industry heading in this region?
Dubai is known to be the fashion hub in the Middle East. The fashion industry has developed tremendously and drastically in the last ten years.
Today, there is at least one fashion event per week and there are many leading fashion weeks that are of the same calibre as London, Milan and New York.
However, since retail as a whole is changing worldwide – partly due to technology and partly as an effect of Covid – and the fashion industry is part of this change, we are going to highlight the changes and assist this ecosystem to adapt and to grow further
