When she used to go shopping for clothes, she would find all the nice designs catering to the youngsters, leaving the older ages with very limited choices. Refusing to settle and let go of her fashion obsession, the then forty-nine-year-old Nehad El Sewefy decided to launch her own local brand, selling creative designs online and through marketplaces, fash ion avenues, and boutiques. “I wanted to wear things that are very elegant, fashionable, chic, and yet suit my own age. I wanted people of my age to get creative with their clothes, and still look their own age,” Nehad says.
Nehad is originally an engineering graduate, from the department of electricity and power. When she became a mother she left her engineering career to raise her daughter and son, yet not forgetting about her interest in fashion. “I always design my own clothes, and I have always known how to sew. Whenever
I wanted to make a new outfit, I used to design it from start to finish,” she adds.
With her friends’ positive feed back and encouragement, she decided to launch a brand for home accessories, Duvattique, when she was forty -seven, but later wanted to pursue her dream with fashion at the age of forty nine. Yes, career launch and then a shift by the late forties. “It started by coincidence when a client liked a design of my own I was wearing and asked me to design one for her as well. When she received admiration as well, I started to make more and so on until I felt it was a good idea to get into the industry,” Nehad adds.
Penetrating the challenging industry, Nehad struggles to find employees who understand her vision. Being primarily an online store, her main concern is to earn her clients’ trust with good-quality fabrics. She also in stalled a policy for both refund and exchange to make people more comfortable and guarantees not losing their money.
Since Nehad has always focused on creating unique designs, people at first didn’t really understand them because they were different. “People would tell me: you’re not famous yet to use these types of designs; you don’t make enough profit, be on the safe side and sell commercially. They made me stop many times to re-evaluate things, but I was stubborn and I loved my designs. I love being different, and I was sure there were people out there like me,” Nehad explains.
As passionate as she is about de signing, opening her own boutique isn’t really one of Nehad’s ambitions because she doesn’t want to waste any time on any thing other than design. “I don’t want to take the project as pure business. I want to fo cus on the designing to be really made with love because it shows. I don’t want to cram things. If I don’t feel passionate about it, I’d rather not do it because people won’t like it,” she explains.
When asked about the notion of #مش_عيب_على_سنك, Nehad has her own insight. “There is no such thing, as long as you are doing something you love and it is good and useful. Do whatever you want and wear whatever you want, as long as you are not hurting anyone.”
