[Applause]
many of you in this audience may look at
me as somebody very successful and
perhaps that is correct however in the
eyes of my parents I’m a complete
failure it is because I have not lived
the life they dictated for me to live
I’m originally from Saudi Arabia and as
a woman growing up there
I was told that my role as a woman is to
be a great mother a daughter a wife and
a grandmother while I think those are
amazing roles and it is such a gift for
a woman to play those roles in life I
knew I also wanted to have a
professional presence and I wanted to
have it all so for the first time in my
life I decided that I will step away to
make a difference and I will give up my
very comfortable life to inherit a very
uncomfortable one and I moved to the
United States as a teenager to follow my
dreams and most importantly to gain
freedom and independence I moved to
United States as a teenager 10 days
before September 11 that was a very
challenging experience for me because as
soon as I revealed to people my origins
people judged me I would walk down my
campus and I would hear terrorists
but I did not allow those negative
experiences to come over me and take me
away from or come in between what why I
was in the United States for so I
decided to move on with my life
and while I was living in the United
States I got to experience so many
different elements personally
educationally and professionally
personally I got to create great
relationships and for that I am so
grateful educationally I got to do my
associate to my bachelor’s to my masters
and my dissertation here would for that
I’m so grateful as well and
professionally I got to work in the
fashion industry
in the areas of buying marketing
management consultation and special
fashion week production now my journey
in the fashion industry took me to many
areas of the world South America Asia to
visit manufacturing plants and factories
while I was there the experience was a
bit strange for me I felt caged and it
was because as soon as the doors opened
of the factories
I got to see factory workers and the
conditions that were working it was a
dark room it was a big room who had
thousands and thousands of people inside
dark little to no ventilation cramped up
working away 10 hours 12 hours 14 hours
days and sometimes double shifts seven
days a week and I know for a fact they
were not treated well and their wages
were so low and here I was sitting in my
very comfortable office with large space
comfort air conditioning light and all
for myself and something didn’t feel
right and I knew that if I needed to
make a difference I needed to leave my
corporate structure because I couldn’t
do anything within the four walls of my
corporate structure so for the second
time I decided to step away and make a
difference once again and I left my very
comfortable corporate life to inherit a
very uncomfortable life and that was to
start my own company
and my company was focusing on working
with fashion designers who are coming
from underrepresented countries and
countries that are under represented
countries and those who are coming for
from emerging background in the
marketplace so I disable to work in
different areas of the business cycle
different areas of the development of
these their businesses most importantly
I got to see their working conditions
and the people who are working for them
and to make sure that they were treated
with fair wage and they were treated
properly and then the good thing is from
the consumer point of view people are
becoming more and more aware and there
are organizations such as fashion
revolution and remake that are serving
as a voice for these factory workers for
people to understand to know who are
making your clothes so everybody in the
audience I think that every one of you
should know that the shirt you are
wearing who is making it how many hours
of Labor are did somebody put in to make
that and if they were treated properly
so while I was very happy with what I
was doing there was an area in my
industry that I was always very
intrigued by and it was the Fashion Week
now luckily as a buyer I got to travel
to different fashion weeks in different
parts of the world and it was mainly of
course focused for buyers such as me and
media professionals and was invite-only
so we got to sit in these Fashion Week’s
and see what would happen six months in
advance so if I was attending a fashion
show in the winter time I will see the
spring/summer collection and if I was
attending a show during the spring time
I would see the fall/winter collection
so everything six months in advance and
of course it was very vital for my job
to see what’s going to come in the
market so I can prepare the assortment
for product placement but however one
element that was very strange was that
it was not open to general public so our
job is to ensure that we make smart
decisions
in product placement into the stores
just to make sure that the general
public who are the main demographics to
shop will shop everything and we don’t
have to do any markdowns so but they
were the ones who were not attending the
Fashion Week’s because of it being
invite only
now however in the last five years due
to a massive disruption which has been
happening over the over a decade now the
fashion industry got affected positively
and negatively and many jobs had changed
such as my job as a buyer I no longer
had to travel a lot to make my buying
decisions I could do it using services
like jour or lo new black there are
plenty of this kind of services that
would offer me options to sit in my
office and make my buying decisions so
now what was happening to these fashion
weeks which was targeted to attract us
were slowly becoming smaller and many
fashion brands stopped even presenting
their collection in in the Fashion
Week’s because their sole purpose is to
showcase us the collection and if we’re
not there why should they create a huge
expense and showcase their collection
there so looking at that and looking at
that disruption I thought okay perhaps
this is the time we can make a change
and that would be bridging the gap
between consumers and and the fashion
designer and perhaps creating a platform
which is more intimate and not invite
only so everybody in the industry can
network connect create business together
and do business exchanges and it’s not
only a platform for business and
marketing but it’s also a right now
platform so what that means is that
these fashion designers will be able to
showcase their collection that they are
creating at the moment and not only this
is a platform to showcase that
collection there will be consumers who
are the real demographic that they want
to attract will be able to come to these
shows and they are able to purchase it
immediately so it would be a very see
now we’re now by now concept
so I was very excited about this concept
so I went to my colleagues that have
worked for so many with so many years
and I presented this idea and I said hey
our demographic our target market should
be emerging designers designers who are
coming from underrepresented countries
because they don’t usually get to
showcase at the conventional Fashion
Week’s so we can create a marketplace
and we can create it as one-stop shop
for them my colleagues looked at me and
they said you are crazy
are you trying to replace your own job
this will never happen because in the
fashion industry we don’t change
everything can change but in the fashion
industry nothing will change and to that
drastic measure now I was not trying to
change something but I was just trying
to sit with what was happening around us
so that we don’t lose a lot of
businesses in our industry anyhow so
with their response of course I realized
that they will not be joining me in this
venture so I may have to do it alone so
I decided about five years ago to do a
soft launch about in regards to this
Fashion Week our response was not so bad
but it wasn’t what I hoped for but the
year after year all of a sudden there
was a massive growth fashion designers
coming from all over the world
showcasing on this collection because
they want to sell of their collection at
that moment and they want to connect to
their consumers coming out the middle
market which takes so long for that
right so then I noticed that there are
other Fashion Week’s starting with the
same concept in Amsterdam Berlin
Stockholm which was great and then we
were offered to do this fashion pop-up
shows as well in other countries who
really started doing that as well which
was really great and then we saw the
conventional Fashion Week’s such as
Paris London New York Milan started
having some shifts at New York Fashion
Week
on its own last year did that right now
see now by now where now concept for
many brands so which was really great to
see
while stepping back looking at this
wonderful change in the industry
I thought this wouldn’t have been
possible if we were not open to
integration now integration is extremely
important not only professionally but
personally as well it is because say for
example when I came to the United States
if I did not integrate I would not know
how the system works how the people work
how things work around to me now it
doesn’t mean that I have to give up my
values to integrate but I can keep my
values integrate to keep up with what’s
going on and same with the business
world that we don’t have to give up an
idea we just have to see what’s
happening in our current marketplace
integrate so that we can be successful
and now in the fashion term this is what
I want to say we all must integrate with
the current trend but with our own style
now we have mastered integration and now
looking at integration if we have an
idea sometimes it is almost scary to
merge both because when we have an idea
we think about this is how things are
going to go this is how I want my idea
to land but with integration it may not
be successful because I might have to
change something so with that a weird
feeling comes into our stomach and that
butterfly feeling and I I tell you it is
not the feeling of love it is the
feeling of feeling nervous and feeling
of fear that is and it is alright to
feel the feeling of fear because if we
don’t feel the feeling of fear we may
not want something bad enough now in my
professional journey about three years
ago I was introduced to an amazing
opportunity to mentor graduate students
in to run for them to run to train and
run a fashion week and that’s basically
a three month
boot camp training for them so that they
can learn how to run a entire production
company and then create an entire
Fashion Week with that skill so when I
present them this idea the first day
they are excited and that’s only the 5%
of the students the other 95% students
are confused and a bigger chunk they are
scared and they tell me no I can’t do it
and I asked them why can’t you do this
and they said because it’s three months
I need to learn everything how a
production company works and then I have
to create a gigantic fashion week of
course I can’t do it and I asked them
why and then they tell me it is because
I am afraid that I am going to fail I am
going to fail creating this massive
production so I’m not going to do it so
I look into their eyes and I asked them
what’s going on and they said I am just
very fearful so then I asked them who is
this mr. fear that you are asked you’re
telling me about
because mr. fear sounds like a liar to
me he I can’t see him I can’t touch him
perhaps it’s a feeling isn’t it and it’s
a feeling that is deriving from your
mind which is stopping you from
believing in yourself and I tell you our
mind is a very scary neighborhood and we
must not visit it alone so and I know in
my personal life if I was listening to
my mind a lot I assure you that I
wouldn’t be the first woman to work from
my family neither I would be the first
woman to migrate to a foreign country on
my own without a husband as a teenager
10 days before September 11 many of you
may think I’m utterly successful however
in the eyes of many people such as my
parents I will remain a failure so
who decides if you are successful or if
you are a failure I think success and
failure truly lies in the eyes of the
beholder thank you
[Applause]
many of you in this audience may look at
me as somebody very successful and
perhaps that is correct however in the
eyes of my parents I’m a complete
failure it is because I have not lived
the life they dictated for me to live
I’m originally from Saudi Arabia and as
a woman growing up there
I was told that my role as a woman is to
be a great mother a daughter a wife and
a grandmother while I think those are
amazing roles and it is such a gift for
a woman to play those roles in life I
knew I also wanted to have a
professional presence and I wanted to
have it all so for the first time in my
life I decided that I will step away to
make a difference and I will give up my
very comfortable life to inherit a very
uncomfortable one and I moved to the
United States as a teenager to follow my
dreams and most importantly to gain
freedom and independence I moved to
United States as a teenager 10 days
before September 11 that was a very
challenging experience for me because as
soon as I revealed to people my origins
people judged me I would walk down my
campus and I would hear terrorists
but I did not allow those negative
experiences to come over me and take me
away from or come in between what why I
was in the United States for so I
decided to move on with my life
and while I was living in the United
States I got to experience so many
different elements personally
educationally and professionally
personally I got to create great
relationships and for that I am so
grateful educationally I got to do my
associate to my bachelor’s to my masters
and my dissertation here would for that
I’m so grateful as well and
professionally I got to work in the
fashion industry
in the areas of buying marketing
management consultation and special
fashion week production now my journey
in the fashion industry took me to many
areas of the world South America Asia to
visit manufacturing plants and factories
while I was there the experience was a
bit strange for me I felt caged and it
was because as soon as the doors opened
of the factories
I got to see factory workers and the
conditions that were working it was a
dark room it was a big room who had
thousands and thousands of people inside
dark little to no ventilation cramped up
working away 10 hours 12 hours 14 hours
days and sometimes double shifts seven
days a week and I know for a fact they
were not treated well and their wages
were so low and here I was sitting in my
very comfortable office with large space
comfort air conditioning light and all
for myself and something didn’t feel
right and I knew that if I needed to
make a difference I needed to leave my
corporate structure because I couldn’t
do anything within the four walls of my
corporate structure so for the second
time I decided to step away and make a
difference once again and I left my very
comfortable corporate life to inherit a
very uncomfortable life and that was to
start my own company
and my company was focusing on working
with fashion designers who are coming
from underrepresented countries and
countries that are under represented
countries and those who are coming for
from emerging background in the
marketplace so I disable to work in
different areas of the business cycle
different areas of the development of
these their businesses most importantly
I got to see their working conditions
and the people who are working for them
and to make sure that they were treated
with fair wage and they were treated
properly and then the good thing is from
the consumer point of view people are
becoming more and more aware and there
are organizations such as fashion
revolution and remake that are serving
as a voice for these factory workers for
people to understand to know who are
making your clothes so everybody in the
audience I think that every one of you
should know that the shirt you are
wearing who is making it how many hours
of Labor are did somebody put in to make
that and if they were treated properly
so while I was very happy with what I
was doing there was an area in my
industry that I was always very
intrigued by and it was the Fashion Week
now luckily as a buyer I got to travel
to different fashion weeks in different
parts of the world and it was mainly of
course focused for buyers such as me and
media professionals and was invite-only
so we got to sit in these Fashion Week’s
and see what would happen six months in
advance so if I was attending a fashion
show in the winter time I will see the
spring/summer collection and if I was
attending a show during the spring time
I would see the fall/winter collection
so everything six months in advance and
of course it was very vital for my job
to see what’s going to come in the
market so I can prepare the assortment
for product placement but however one
element that was very strange was that
it was not open to general public so our
job is to ensure that we make smart
decisions
in product placement into the stores
just to make sure that the general
public who are the main demographics to
shop will shop everything and we don’t
have to do any markdowns so but they
were the ones who were not attending the
Fashion Week’s because of it being
invite only
now however in the last five years due
to a massive disruption which has been
happening over the over a decade now the
fashion industry got affected positively
and negatively and many jobs had changed
such as my job as a buyer I no longer
had to travel a lot to make my buying
decisions I could do it using services
like jour or lo new black there are
plenty of this kind of services that
would offer me options to sit in my
office and make my buying decisions so
now what was happening to these fashion
weeks which was targeted to attract us
were slowly becoming smaller and many
fashion brands stopped even presenting
their collection in in the Fashion
Week’s because their sole purpose is to
showcase us the collection and if we’re
not there why should they create a huge
expense and showcase their collection
there so looking at that and looking at
that disruption I thought okay perhaps
this is the time we can make a change
and that would be bridging the gap
between consumers and and the fashion
designer and perhaps creating a platform
which is more intimate and not invite
only so everybody in the industry can
network connect create business together
and do business exchanges and it’s not
only a platform for business and
marketing but it’s also a right now
platform so what that means is that
these fashion designers will be able to
showcase their collection that they are
creating at the moment and not only this
is a platform to showcase that
collection there will be consumers who
are the real demographic that they want
to attract will be able to come to these
shows and they are able to purchase it
immediately so it would be a very see
now we’re now by now concept
so I was very excited about this concept
so I went to my colleagues that have
worked for so many with so many years
and I presented this idea and I said hey
our demographic our target market should
be emerging designers designers who are
coming from underrepresented countries
because they don’t usually get to
showcase at the conventional Fashion
Week’s so we can create a marketplace
and we can create it as one-stop shop
for them my colleagues looked at me and
they said you are crazy
are you trying to replace your own job
this will never happen because in the
fashion industry we don’t change
everything can change but in the fashion
industry nothing will change and to that
drastic measure now I was not trying to
change something but I was just trying
to sit with what was happening around us
so that we don’t lose a lot of
businesses in our industry anyhow so
with their response of course I realized
that they will not be joining me in this
venture so I may have to do it alone so
I decided about five years ago to do a
soft launch about in regards to this
Fashion Week our response was not so bad
but it wasn’t what I hoped for but the
year after year all of a sudden there
was a massive growth fashion designers
coming from all over the world
showcasing on this collection because
they want to sell of their collection at
that moment and they want to connect to
their consumers coming out the middle
market which takes so long for that
right so then I noticed that there are
other Fashion Week’s starting with the
same concept in Amsterdam Berlin
Stockholm which was great and then we
were offered to do this fashion pop-up
shows as well in other countries who
really started doing that as well which
was really great and then we saw the
conventional Fashion Week’s such as
Paris London New York Milan started
having some shifts at New York Fashion
Week
on its own last year did that right now
see now by now where now concept for
many brands so which was really great to
see
while stepping back looking at this
wonderful change in the industry
I thought this wouldn’t have been
possible if we were not open to
integration now integration is extremely
important not only professionally but
personally as well it is because say for
example when I came to the United States
if I did not integrate I would not know
how the system works how the people work
how things work around to me now it
doesn’t mean that I have to give up my
values to integrate but I can keep my
values integrate to keep up with what’s
going on and same with the business
world that we don’t have to give up an
idea we just have to see what’s
happening in our current marketplace
integrate so that we can be successful
and now in the fashion term this is what
I want to say we all must integrate with
the current trend but with our own style
now we have mastered integration and now
looking at integration if we have an
idea sometimes it is almost scary to
merge both because when we have an idea
we think about this is how things are
going to go this is how I want my idea
to land but with integration it may not
be successful because I might have to
change something so with that a weird
feeling comes into our stomach and that
butterfly feeling and I I tell you it is
not the feeling of love it is the
feeling of feeling nervous and feeling
of fear that is and it is alright to
feel the feeling of fear because if we
don’t feel the feeling of fear we may
not want something bad enough now in my
professional journey about three years
ago I was introduced to an amazing
opportunity to mentor graduate students
in to run for them to run to train and
run a fashion week and that’s basically
a three month
boot camp training for them so that they
can learn how to run a entire production
company and then create an entire
Fashion Week with that skill so when I
present them this idea the first day
they are excited and that’s only the 5%
of the students the other 95% students
are confused and a bigger chunk they are
scared and they tell me no I can’t do it
and I asked them why can’t you do this
and they said because it’s three months
I need to learn everything how a
production company works and then I have
to create a gigantic fashion week of
course I can’t do it and I asked them
why and then they tell me it is because
I am afraid that I am going to fail I am
going to fail creating this massive
production so I’m not going to do it so
I look into their eyes and I asked them
what’s going on and they said I am just
very fearful so then I asked them who is
this mr. fear that you are asked you’re
telling me about
because mr. fear sounds like a liar to
me he I can’t see him I can’t touch him
perhaps it’s a feeling isn’t it and it’s
a feeling that is deriving from your
mind which is stopping you from
believing in yourself and I tell you our
mind is a very scary neighborhood and we
must not visit it alone so and I know in
my personal life if I was listening to
my mind a lot I assure you that I
wouldn’t be the first woman to work from
my family neither I would be the first
woman to migrate to a foreign country on
my own without a husband as a teenager
10 days before September 11 many of you
may think I’m utterly successful however
in the eyes of many people such as my
parents I will remain a failure so
who decides if you are successful or if
you are a failure I think success and
failure truly lies in the eyes of the
beholder thank you
[Applause]
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