Yahya Stapic opens doors to UAE fashion talent

29 Nov '10

4 min read

The winner of The Big Start student entrepreneur competition, an initiative of venture capitalist Al Tamimi Investments (ATI), gets ready to pay his big break forward through his pioneering retail and fashion incubator concept, United Designers.

Set to open in April 2011, United Designers will offer up-and-coming fashion talent in the UAE a platform to showcase and retail their debut collections in a premier storefront location while receiving invaluable business advice on merchandising, pricing and stock control.

This unique retail concept is the brainchild of aspiring fashion entrepreneur and American University of Sharjah graduate Yahya Stapic. Al Tamimi Investments selected him as the winner of the inaugural Big Start competition earlier this year and now Stapic plans to extend that same spirit of entrepreneurship into what he says is a maturing local fashion industry.

“United Designers is as much about discovering emerging fashion talent in the UAE as it is about nurturing and mentoring designers to launch and establish their own fashion brands,” said Stapic of his retail concept.

"I have many friends studying fashion at university who are trying to create and promote their brands on Facebook, but they don't have the appropriate platform to sell and market themselves. We have an excellent pool of emerging fashion talent here in the UAE, but they lack visibility. United Designers provides that visibility – a platform through which they can communicate with their customers, sell their collections, and achieve great heights,” he added.

Stapic's concept store will offer a unique shopping experience displaying between 20-30 new designers, each with their own branded retail space. In this way, United Designers offers an open-based platform for local fashion talent to showcase their collections while granting customers access to limited pieces designed exclusively for the store. In addition, United Designers will empower its selected designers with the knowledge and skills they need to grow their brands.

“We've received great interest from budding designers so far, but our search for the UAE's emerging fashion stars has only just begun. I want to encourage any young, aspiring designers to contact us now. They will go through a selection process, the main criteria being that their collections are commercially sound, of quality, originality, personal style, and to an extent, in line with seasonal fashion trends,” said Stapic.

The Big Start competition is ATI's core CSR programme. It seeks to identify final year university students with a great idea for a UAE-based business and rewards the winner or winners with full funding and support to establish their business and become CEO after they graduate.

It is the only student entrepreneur competition of its kind in the UAE to actively guide, mentor and facilitate the development of each entrant's business plan, and to fully fund the winner's idea and support the creation of the new business with knowledge and expertise from senior ATI management. Ideas remain the intellectual property of the students, and those that are not final winners are free to pursue their business ideas independently, with the added benefit of the skills gained during the competition.

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