The couple have entered the world of skincare, but want you to know they are not just another ‘celebrity brand’, writes Sophie Prideaux

Sabrina and Idris Elba are, as it turns out, just like the rest of us. “Idris would look at the 20 products on my bathroom counter and say: ‘Why do you need all those things?’ And I’d always say, I do,” Sabrina says with a laugh.

The couple’s opposing skincare routines – Sabrina’s endless serums and acids versus Idris’s Vaseline and go approach – became a topic of debate between them during the pandemic, when, freshly recovered from Covid-19, wellness was at the forefront of their minds.

“We started going on a wellness journey together at that time, as we probably all did,” she says. “We didn’t feel like the self-care that we were using incorporated some of the issues that we faced, like hyperpigmentation and inflammation.”

The result of that journey is S’Able Labs, a genderless skincare brand that not only answers their individual concerns as a couple, but channels their ancestral history by sourcing natural ingredients from Africa that the pair grew up watching members of their family use.

“A-beauty [African beauty] is a huge pillar for us as a brand,” Sabrina says. “We really want to use this as a moment to give African ingredients a time to shine and to be able to back them with the right biotech, so they are at their most powerful.”

Sabrina is of Somali descent. As a child, she watched her mother, Maryam, mixing DIY face masks using turmeric and qasil, sourced from the leaves of Somalia’s gob tree, which she would leave on for hours at a time.

“My mum’s always been a huge believer of just using natural ingredients and using less – I rebelled against that,” she says. “At first I thought: ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, you don’t even know what hyaluronic serum is’.

“I went completely the other way and was using so many things that were damaging my skin. I had really bad acne in high school, which led to bad hyperpigmentation. So I felt I always covered up with so much make-up and was then stripping it down with way too many actives. It wasn’t until I really started to incorporate my mum’s ethos of ‘do less, use more natural ingredients’ that I’ve noticed massive change. Mums are always right.”

S’Able Labs launched last summer with an initial three-step product line – the Qasil Cleanser, Black Seed Toner and Baobab Moisturiser, which are now available at Dubai’s Biolite Clinic. “Three of the unique beauty ingredients that we use in our core collection are sometimes used in other formulations and other brands, but we really wanted to regain ownership because they did feel a bit appropriated in a way,” Sabrina says.

“Baobab, which is in the moisturiser, is an amazing antioxidant. Black seed, I mean my dad used to put black seed in his tea saying that it will make you live forever – it’s a really strong anti-inflammatory agent. Qasil is a natural soap and Somali women say it makes you look super young and claim it has all these great anti-ageing benefits, not only for your skin, for your hair as well. So we were really excited to incorporate those amazing ingredients.”

The Elbas are United Nations Goodwill Ambassadors for the International Fund for Agricultural Development, and so ensuring the products are responsibly sourced and rural farmers are supported is an important part of the S’Able Labs ethos. The products have been awarded the Butterfly Mark certification from Positive Luxury, which recognises luxury brands contributing to the future of the planet.

It was also important for the couple to feel that they were contributing something new and progressive to an overcrowded industry. “I get really frustrated when people say: ‘Oh, this is a celebrity brand’,” Sabrina says.

“Yes, there are a lot of celebrity brands, we totally get it, but we created this brand because we thought there was a space in the market, so to now be dumped into something just because of Idris’s prior experience or because of who he is, feels unfair.”

Ensuring the range was genderless was important. “Idris wanted to understand what he was putting on his skin because he felt the market for men dumbed down products and didn’t offer the education,” she says.

“Why do girls know so much about peptides and men only learn about peppermint? There’s this unfair distance between what you find in male marketing and what you find on a pink tax product.

"We wanted to come together in the middle and find a way to have a really efficient routine that we could share, that incorporated all of his skincare concerns and mine, but educated us in a way that made sense.”

And how is it running a business as husband and wife? “I love it,” she says. “You know, it’s not for everyone. A lot of people told us it would be a recipe for disaster. But I think because we have a similar goal, we have a similar ambition, it actually gives us something that moves us forward together that we connect on. We found a passion together.”

Dubai’s Biolite Clinic is S’Able Labs’s first and only global retail partner. As well as offering the full range, Biolite has also created a signature Oxyjet Leo X S’Able Labs Facial, which is now available to book.

“We instantly fell in love with Biolite’s ethos,” Sabrina says. “There’s so many similarities between our brands and our personal values. And it’s great to be carried in a clinic that has been in Dubai for such a long time and is run by women.

“I love Dubai – I could move here,” she adds. “I think I’ve almost convinced Idris.”

Venus rising

A celebration of unashamed femininity, with flattering cuts, decadent details and a touch of cool

Fashion Director: Sarah Maisey
Photographer: Esra Sam at MMG Artists

Ahead of his haute couture debut, the Indian designer spoke to Francesca Fearon about climate activism, meeting Vivienne Westwood and dressing Cardi B

In an elegant 19th-century apartment in a chic Paris neighbourhood, there was the familiar bustle of pre-fashion show activity. Models arriving for fittings, assistants dashing about with scissors and thread, and celebrities dropping by to choose their front row looks from the rails of colourful clothes lining the rooms. Calmly overseeing this commotion was Gaurav Gupta.

The Indian couturier was preparing for his official haute couture debut the following day, with a show scheduled straight after Fendi Couture. The prestigious Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode has previously championed the Indian talents of Vaishali S and Rahul Mishra, and for the January collections, Gupta joined the ranks with Mishra, as a guest designer.

The collection was called Zero Infinity, a seeming paradox juxtaposing stillness with movement – but if you saw Cardi B in her “dancing in the wind” blue outfit at the Grammy Awards last month, you start to get the picture. Gupta has deftly moulded light, ribbed organza into pleated waves that wrap around the head and body in one continuous rippling line seemingly without beginning or end – in other words, infinite.

Cardi B wore look nine from the show, but nude-coloured versions on the catwalk prompted one front row commentator beside me to describe the dresses as being like “the swirling sands of the desert”.

Infinity is a signature sculptural technique for the designer. “I’ve always loved drape and structure, certainly going back 10 years,” Gupta says during the fittings. “I like exploring volume and 3D embroidery,” he adds as I watch him working with his team on a dress of sand-coloured waves that conjoins one black and one white model together.

A gesture of unity, a political statement perhaps, but exquisitely expressed. Gupta is quite a political personality. He describes himself as an activist, and among his interests are climate change.

“I remember,” he says, “when I was talking about the air pollution crisis in India, during a television debate with some politicians, and trying to get the message across of how important it is for us to have the right to breathe [clean air].”

Politics and bureaucracy slow down any change but, says Gupta, “for me it’s personal. We need to be using all mediums to get our message across”. He acknowledges that championing sustainability and highlighting climate change are a lot for some people to understand, but believes that, as someone in the public eye, “one has to keep talking about this, to be honest and to find ways to collaborate and join hands and make a difference on the ground, in the oceans and on the beaches. We all have to do our bit.”

The designer recalls spending an inspiring three hours talking to Dame Vivienne Westwood about climate change when they met in 2019 at the Animal Ball, a cause that Gupta supports, raising money for elephant and tiger populations in Asia. He was captivated by her passion and knowledge. “She was the ultimate icon who made us think differently about climate change,” he says.

Nevertheless, he feels the understanding of climate change and issues around sustainability are still making slow progress in India. “A lot more needs to be happening. I don’t think the eventual client who is consuming fashion or most commercial products has an understanding or awareness around sustainability.”

He, however, is making his own contribution in terms of ensuring a good working environment for
his fashion and embroidery ateliers. His brand uses recycled packaging, and a year ago, he created a whole collection using recycled ocean plastics.

“I want to make more clothes out of waste. In fact, I personally wear a few upcycled clothes and I only drive electric cars. I think it’s not just about a brand, one has to do this personally as well. Sustainability should be a reflection of all the activity in your life.”

Gupta founded his eponymous label in 2005, after graduating from Central Saint Martins in London, the alma mater of Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney, and then working for conceptual designer Hussein Chalayan.

Over the past 18 years, his collections have embraced the skills of India’s gifted embroiderers, combined with his own whirlwind sculptural techniques to create glamorous gowns that appear on best-dressed lists in India and the Middle East, as well as in music videos and on the red carpet. The bridal market is a big part of business in India, but from haute couture he has expanded into evening ready-to-wear.

His Middle Eastern clients, royal families and private clients fly into Delhi requesting bespoke designs. “We offer them something unique that they cannot buy at home,” Gupta says. His label is expanding its footprint with strategic partnerships with groups such as Neiman Marcus and Moda Operandi in the USA. “I’ve always wanted to be global, but when I’m ready and financially sustainable in India first.

“We’ve fine-tuned the machinery, and now have girls and women from 15 to 80 years old wearing us, and men of all age groups. They go that extra step to wear us because they want to enter our fantasy world.”

As a creator, Gupta describes himself as a non-conformist. “I don’t follow pattern making, but work with structured draping, mostly on a mannequin.” Every client has their own mannequin for precision fitting. There are up to 10 processes that a design goes through, from calico toile through stages of cutting handloomed fabrics, pleating and moulding the silhouettes, embroidery [he also uses bugle beads to create the 3D ribbing that holds the fabric in its wave-like structure] to the finished garment.

He explains his aesthetic as abstraction and fantasy. “I call the look future-primitive; you could even imagine it in a fantasy costume drama,” he quips.
There is no referencing, and no mood board when he starts the design process. “It’s fluid freedom,” he says.

If you were to point to any influence, then he is drawn to architecture and the anatomy, which inspire the fantastical shapes that make such a statement on the red carpet and spread into the experiential environments he has created in his stores around India. The boutiques are surreal, conceptual fantasy palaces that get nominated for architectural awards.

Gupta has long been a red-carpet favourite, dressing Sharon Stone, Priyanka Chopra, Aishwarya Rai, Iman Vellani (the first south Asian Ms Marvel comic heroine) and music industry stars Mary J Blige, Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B and recent Grammy award winner, Lizzo.

They have all embraced his billowing, sculpted silhouettes, which they wear for the red carpet, music videos and concert posters. “I love people like Lizzo, who are cool musicians that stand for something and are on the edge of culture. I believe we have to move and evolve with the times,” Gupta adds of fashion’s diversity issues.

Watching Cardi B wearing his showstopper wave dress at the Grammys last month felt fantastic, he says. “It was exhilarating and actually really heart-warming to see how one dress can be on every media channel in the world. It was a magical moment.”

Sarah Maisey finds out how fashion brands are embracing the three pillars of sustainability

Since the term was coined more than 35 years ago, in the Brundtland report of 1987, the “three pillars of sustainability” have been endlessly debated.

Sustainability exists at the point where social equality, economic viability and environmental protection intersect. However, in the decades since the report was released, the state of the environment has deteriorated dramatically across the globe. One contributor to this decline is the fashion industry, where the rise of mass-produced fast fashion has resulted in an explosion of factories and supply chains, creating a complex worldwide web.

Clothes made in Vietnam, from cotton grown in India, are destined for Europe, while shoes that end up in America are made in China, out of leather from Brazil. Discarded clothes from the West – America alone dumps 11.3 billion tonnes of clothing a year – now swamp markets in Kenya. While the fashion industry may trade on the promise of exquisite clothes, it is also responsible for appalling waste, pollution and human exploitation.

With the industry worth $1.5 trillion annually and employing more than 430 million people, it is in everyone’s interests to ensure that fashion embraces a cleaner, more transparent future, where the murky supply chains that allow sweat shops, child labour and unchecked pollution are revitalised into stable industries, offering opportunities and financial independence to those who need it most.

But this is no small task – just freeing the rivers and waterways of chemicals used in the apparel industry will require that about 8,000 different compounds are examined, regulated and phased out, to ensure toxic pesticides, chromium, formaldehyde and cyanide no longer poison water, animals and people.

Resolving these issues around sustainability will take years, if not decades, as companies struggle to understand each step of the labyrinth-like process. In the meantime, consumer attitudes must shift too, away from demanding a dress that costs less than a cup of coffee, towards a slower, more mindful mentality.

Helping to affect this change is a small but growing number of companies that have each chosen to make sustainability and accountability part of their DNA, and who are willing and able to tackle this challenge head on. Through them, change is afoot.

Social equality

Indian fashion designer Anita Dongre has been celebrating the unique handwork of her homeland for years, with designs covered in the intricate embroideries of northern India.

As she prepares to open her first boutique in the UAE, she remains committed to supporting her country’s artisans. “I have always be drawn to Indian craft,” she says. “I work with women artisans, and started about seven years ago.

“What excites me is where you can use fashion for good. Today, I can sit in my office in Mumbai and design a piece that allows a rural woman, 400 kilometres away from the nearest city in Gujarat, to be sitting in her home doing this beautiful embroidery, or weaving. For me to provide employment for this woman, that is the most enriching part of my job.

“I firmly believe that India’s rise will come from its female workforce. These women artisans learn the art of embroidery to sew clothes for their daughters’ dowries. Today these skills can provide an income and make her an independent women. When I go to the villages, I hear the stories of how this changes their lives. Men look at them with more respect because they are earning their own income. And this is the same story everywhere, whether it’s a woman in a village in Gujarat or in New York. All we want is to be economically independent.”

Known for her lavish occasion and bridal wear, Dongre’s pieces are largely created to be seasonless. She wants her designs to linger in a woman’s wardrobe for years and to be passed down.

“These are very limited-edition pieces, made in small batches, and I always try to do silhouettes and styles that will be with my clients for a long time, as the number of women practicing this craft is slowly dwindling.

“Their kids take up jobs in computing in cites. So today, the challenge is to find these women employment, but I think the challenge in 20 years will be how to ensure the next generation keeps practicing the craft. I want people to buy my pieces and hold on to them, because who knows if they will be able to get this in the next 20 or 25 years.”

Dongre is also keen for her workers feel invested in the final product. “If you go into the villages, these women take so much pride in knowing they are designing for a major fashion house, and that their work is being sold all over the world. In fact, when we opened in New York, we took three of our artisans to the store launch.

“They also walked for one of my fashion shows in Bombay – they got a standing ovation, by the way. Not my designs, the women.”

Environmental sustainability

While silk may be soft and lustrous, it comes with a dark secret.

The long, silken threads so coveted by the fashion industry come from the silk worm, which spins a cocoon to protect itself as it metamorphoses into the silk moth, Bombyx mandarina. Held together by a gummy substance called sericin, this must be removed before the cocoon can be unwound, so the cocoon – and the worm inside – are thrown into boiling water. About 5,500 cocoons are needed to make one kilo of thread, while a yard of silk, about the size of a scarf, uses up to 3,000 cocoons.

In contrast, a new company called Niluu makes high-end, luxurious kimonos, fluid daywear and eye masks in a heavy silk that is 100 per cent vegan. The brainchild of Nilüfer Bracco, a Turkish designer living in Miami, the company was born after a chance introduction to a vegan silk supplier at a trade fair.

“I heard the story of the fabric, fell in love with it and just wanted to put everything together – my passion for fashion, for luxury and for animal welfare.”

The material is called cupro, and is made from cotton seeds discarded during the harvest process. When properly processed, extraction of the linter – the cellulose seed cover – results in a long, smooth fibre that looks, feels and behaves just like silk. First discovered a century ago, the process was originally crude and polluting, until Japanese company Asahi Kasei stepped in and cleaned it up via its state-of-the-art, sustainable factory.

“It’s an entirely closed loop facility. Any chemicals are reused and any waste is used to generate electricity, so it’s along the whole chain,” says Bracco.

To transform the cupro cloth into her airy, decadent wraps and clothes, Bracco enlisted Ipeker, a silk specialist factory in Turkey, which has switched from 130 years of traditional silk work to become animal free, and is the first industrial silk producer to be certified vegan.

Using a weighty version of the silk, Bracco’s pieces are rich and enveloping, with a tactile, peachy surface. This is one of the advantages of using cupro, she says. While this quality is possible in real silk, the prohibitive cost of using so much means “no one does it commercially, it’s too expensive”. Instead, Bracco offers her customers something remarkable, for a fraction of the cost. “When we do touch tests, everyone chooses the cupro; it feels much richer,” the designer says.

Recently showcased at a pop up at Galeries Lafayette in Dubai Mall, the appeal of her clothing is simple, Bracco says. “You feel great wearing them and your conscious can feel good about it too.”

In addition, Niluu is a member of the 1% for the Planet initiative by Patagonia, donating 1 per cent of sales to charities and good causes. Since Patagonia started the project in 1985, 3,419 businesses, across 64 countries, have donated more than $270 million.

Economic viability

During lockdown, Angana Maheshwari began searching for a non-leather handbag suitable for her inevitable return to the office.

“There were four points I was looking for – quality, transparency in sustainability, price and style. I was unable to find a single bag that hit all four points, so that’s when I realised there was a gap.”

The offshoot is Veganologie, a brand she launched in January last year, with bags and wallets made from PU leather, derived from plastic bottles reclaimed from the sea. With the plastic cleaned, ground and then pressed into PU leather, each bag uses the equivalent of 11 bottles worth. And with about 5.2 trillion pieces of plastic in the oceans, Veganologie is unlikely to run out of raw materials.

Sold in 100 per cent recycled cardboard packaging, the company is certified vegan by Peta and GRS, the global recycling standard. “We have audited our production facilities to see how sustainable they are, so for example, if there are longer working hours, we have made sure workers are being paid for the extra time. Fashion is an industry where everyone is working overtime, but we try to make sure workers are receiving ethical treatment.”

The collection is compact, featuring three bags, two wallets, a laptop and a weekend bag, in four or five vegan colours. “We are also the first brand in the UAE and GCC to launch apple leather in our collection. It’s something unique for the region, and we started with unisex cards holders for now. Plant-based leathers are becoming more available, but they are still expensive as supply is low and demand is high.”

The company offers a lot of information on its website and packaging, going into detail about how the bags are made. “We are clear and transparent to the consumer, so they can see how everything is done.”

With about 8 million pieces of plastic entering the oceans every day, according to the US’s National Ocean Service, Maheshwari is also passionate about preventing it from ending up there in the first place.

“We have partnered with a local UAE organisation Azraq, and every sale goes towards the planting of mangroves along the UAE coastline. We are trying to do our bit to give back, to protect the coastline and stop plastic from going into the sea.”

Ecological sustainability
An offshoot of environmental sustainability, ecological sustainability promotes a business model that does not harm the environment, but translates into economic growth. One company that thinks it has found a solution is Hempy People, a Dubai-registered brand that promotes, educates and explains the advantages of hemp.

Co-founder Beatrix Henkel explains: “We are a workspace for those who are ready to get onboard and really live sustainability. Not just talk about it, but walk the walk.”

With a doctorate in education, she runs workshops and talks to engage with a wider audience about hemp’s multiple uses. It is, she explains, something of a wonder plant. It grows all year round, quickly, is naturally pest resistant, and absorbs more carbon dioxide than it emits.

“You can have several harvests, and no chemicals are used.” While cotton requires 100 to 150 litres of water to produce enough for only one T-shirt, most of that pumped in via irrigation systems, hemp requires very little. “If it only has rainwater, that is enough. Compared to cotton, it is a no-brainer.”

Additionally, hemp has several uses. “The fibres are so strong, they can last for generations, and you can use every part of the hemp plant, across different industries. Imagine having a circular economy where different industries are supporting each other.”

With more than 2,500 possible applications, hemp can be made into fabric, bio-diesel, hemp concrete and even plastic. It is edible (the seeds and oils are packed with nutrients) and can also be incorporated into cosmetic products.

Although hemp and marijuana are the same plant, the difference lies in the level of the psychoactive component tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. In hemp, at 0.3 per cent, it is far too low to produce any narcotic effect.

Hempy People has also teamed up with the fashion school Esmod Dubai, gifting students rolls of hemp cloth to use in their collections. “We want to start with those aspiring to be mindful fashion designers, conscious, environmentally friendly and sustainability focused. It might be a small group, but that’s where you start,” Henkel says.

She says that interest in the region is high, as people look for inventive solutions. “I am having conversations with people who are interested in creating shoes, building houses and making decks on ships. It is really mind-blowing how widely you can use it and how accessible hemp is. We are trying to educate people about sustainability – that it is more than just a word, it’s a lifestyle.”

Transforming grief into beauty

Designer Latoya Shaw began painting shoes as a form of therapy, and has now seen her designs on the big screen, writes Sophie Prideaux

Art, in one form or another, has always been at the core of Latoya Shaw’s life.

Born and raised in Sydney, Australia, she moved to Los Angeles in the US at the age of 18 to pursue a career in acting. But after experiencing deep personal tragedy with the death of a former partner, her art took on a new direction.

“We had shoes in common,” says Shaw. “He was an artist and he used to scrap paint up his shoes. When I went to say my final goodbyes at his home, I saw his shoes hanging by his window and it just hit me. I felt so drawn to them.”

Grieving but inspired, she turned to painting shoes as an outlet, a practice that quickly became a form of therapy and also helped her during the pandemic. “I just started painting and spent all of quarantine painting,” she says. “It gave me a sense of peace in a really chaotic stage of my life.”

Turning her lockdown creations into her business, Lovchld, was a natural progression for Shaw – albeit an unplanned one. Her designs started largely on trainers such as Converse, before moving on to a variety of different shoe styles, from Gucci loafers to Doc Marten boots.

Due to the nature of her paint-splattered styles, each created by hand, no two pairs are the same. A client will come to Shaw with a pair of shoes they want customised and discuss a colour palette or pattern style they might like, but for the most part, they will trust Shaw to work on the design.

“I love the upcycling and recycling element, the idea of breathing new life into something,” she says. “When I paint, it’s very intrinsic. It’s all about layering and blending colours, and transmitting how I am feeling on to the shoe.

“I think it’s a fairly common theme you find with creators. When you’re just doing something that you do for yourself, for the love of it, that feels really authentic to you, that always connects with other people. Even when you’re not necessarily seeking that,” Shaw explains. “That’s when the most authenticity comes through and it connects with other people, I think.”

Once her friends and peers saw Shaw’s designs, that connection was instant. “I had friends around me who were like: ‘Hey, I really like your shoes. Can you do a pair for me?’ And then it just became its own thing,” she says.

“I had a friend who was in the film-making business and was like, ‘we need to put these in a movie’, and started encouraging me to put myself out there in different ways. It all just kind of started snowballing from there. I feel like it’s kind of crazy to be here right now because I didn’t expect for this to happen.”

Her friend’s advice to put herself out there into the film-making world paid off when one of her designs was featured in the Tom Hanks blockbuster A Man Called Otto, which was released in January.

Shaw was commissioned to paint on a pair of classic black leather 1460 Dr Martens for actor Mack Bayda’s character, Malcolm. Bayda loved the creation so much, he asked Shaw to create a custom pair of brogues for the film’s Los Angeles premiere. The result was a navy and green design, with splatters of white, black and yellow, which became the focal point of his look, paired with a classic black tailored suit.

“It was so exciting,” she says. “The combination of seeing the shoes in the film and then on the carpet. I just felt like it was becoming so much bigger than I had ever anticipated it to be and I felt like it was such a blessing.”

Given Shaw only started Lovchld in 2019, she still has plenty of plans for the brand, starting with switching from painting on other people’s shoes to designing her own styles. “I love customising and custom-painting shoes, but now I find myself wanting to expand and shift gears and look into actually making my own shoes,” she says.

“I get so much fulfilment and pleasure from creating in general, but just seeing my designs come to life through stories, through watching people wear my creations to these glamorous events, it’s really exciting.

“Life can be really tough and if there’s something that I want to give to people, it’s the message that it gets better, but also not only does it get better, I feel like life is like one of those things that you just have to keep living through to find a silver lining, you know?”