Dina Shaker: Aesthetic Experience

When Dina Shaker graduated as an interior designer, she worked for just a year before she figured it's not her calling. Her dream all along was to become a fashion designer, and a fashion designer she became, now at the helm of a veritable empire of retail outlets and her own eponymous brand, whose latest collection has gotten the most stylish of tongues wagging thanks to her avant-garde knits, sharp tailoring and unexpected details.

She found that the Fashion and Design Institute in New York was basing a project at a fashion design center in Egypt to promote the industry locally, as it wasn’t as big as it is now. She joined, started studying fashion design and marketing, and interned for several Italian brands, where she learned some of the tricks of the trade. After that, she decided to go solo and do her own thing. In 1998, Shaker started a brand called Spicy that lasted for 12 years and was one of the first well-established fashion brands in Egypt back in the day. Over the years, the business grew into a chain of seven stores. After the 2011 revolution, people became less keen to go shopping at malls and the market was quite unstable. Luckily for Shaker, it was the perfect opportunity for her to make a leap forward and start her own signature brand.