Spotlight on Inspiring Emirati Women: Fatma Al Mulla on Building Something That Lasts

This is the second conversation in our Emirati Women’s Month series, in which Sunita Singh-Dalal, Partner and Head of Private Wealth and Family Offices, speaks with Emirati women whose work has shaped their communities.

Fatma Al Mulla is a designer and the founder of FMM Dubai. She never set out to build a brand. She set out to express her culture in a visual language of her own, and the business followed.

Her story is an inspiring one for anyone advising or building a family enterprise, because it is candid about the part that is rarely discussed: not just the idea, but what it takes to keep it alive.

Key Takeaways from the Conversation

1. 1. Independence was taught early, and deliberately. At 13, her mother enrolled her in a language program in France and left her alone with a host family, some cash and no instructions. “I said, how am I supposed to go to school? And she said, ask your housemates. You’re going to figure it out.” Within just two months, Fatma underwent a dramatic transformation: “first of all, I hated it. But midway through, I thought, I am more independent than I have ever been in my entire life. And that is when I decided I really want to be someone who does not depend on other people.” Her parents set no ceiling on what she could do. When some of her classmates were not permitted to drive, she too was rather reluctant. However, her father clearly felt otherwise, as he told Fatma, ‘This is not an option! You are going to learn how to drive. What if an emergency happens?”
   2. The audience came first. The business came after. “I never really wanted to start a brand. I just wanted to express my culture through visual language.” She posted illustrations with Arabic phrases beneath them that were drawn from conversations among friends. People began asking how to buy them. The blog reached around 100,000 followers by the summer of 2012. Her husband suggested turning the work into products, and supported her by helping her buy books on how to make merchandise. “It started with a creative point of view, and the business developed later. It was not something that happened with a business plan.”
   3. Purpose comes before the product. “People are always starting fashion labels. But why? What is the purpose?” For Fatma Al Mulla, that purpose was grounded in her own experience and a desire to create pieces that felt culturally relevant. During her pregnancy, she chose to continue wearing her dresses rather than conventional maternity clothes, adapting her personal style to reflect what she felt comfortable and confident in at the time. She had also begun creating colorful abayas as early as 2013, when the market was still dominated by simpler black designs. “People were looking at me in the street thinking, what is she wearing?” Today, colorful abayas are commonplace, showing how far the market has evolved since she first introduced them.
   4. Starting is easy. Sustaining is the hard part. “It is very easy starting a business, very easy having a creative idea, very easy rallying people up. But sustainability is very difficult. You see businesses that are amazing for two or three years, and then they are nowhere to be found in five to seven years.” Her definition of success is deliberately unglamorous. Consistency, revenue, income, and “how many families you can support through this business, because at the end of the day, this is a business. It is not a hobby. A hobby is something you can lose money on and be okay with.”
   5. Creativity is a way of solving problems, not a job description. “Being creative does not necessarily mean you are drawing or painting. People can be creative with management, with how they manage their time. Creativity can mean creating different solutions in any kind of entity.” She also recalled a conversation with an inspiring figure who encouraged her not to view any position as permanent, but as an opportunity to make a meaningful impact in the present. “When you understand that there is a bigger purpose than my own, it gives your position meaning wherever you are.”

On building alongside a partner

Her husband started his own business around the same time. “We helped each other.” She is clear about what running a business demands. “You need to be an octopus. You have to wear different hats.” The graphic designer, she notes, is also customer service, and also HR.

She is equally clear about the parts that are not discussed enough, including walking into male-dominated factories in the industrial areas to negotiate production. “It was intimidating. I would tell my husband, come with me. They were not taking me seriously.” She built good alliances in the end, but she does not describe it as easy. “When you come from a privileged family and you are comfortable, it is very difficult leaving that comfort zone.”

A reflection from Sunita Singh-Dalal

“In my work advising family and business groups, more often than not I find there is a gap in communication, and sometimes in vision, between the founder who is the custodian of the wealth and the business, and the younger members of the family, particularly the women. When we come across people like Fatma, who are visionary, clearly ambitious, and able to execute their vision, it is important to share that story, because somebody somewhere will be inspired by it.

It is very easy to get to the top. The question is what you define as the top, at what stage you start to consider yourself successful, and to remember to never stop trying to be better than you were yesterday. Getting there is easy. Staying there is the challenge.”

Fatma Al Mulla began by drawing what she found funny and true about life around her and ended up changing what a generation of women felt able to wear. More than a decade on, the questions she asks herself have not changed: “What is the purpose, who does this serve, and what keeps it standing?”

Our thanks to her for sharing a story that is still being written, and for the honesty she brought to topics that are rarely discussed.