Why Choosing How to Dress Became the Most Important Decision I Made | Deana Shaaban | TEDxAUK

you [Music] I want to share time with you that I once designed a wedding dress for a groom it's about 12 o'clock in the afternoon and a client walks in with her mother and her fiance and they come into my studio to discuss her wedding dress and as we start talking she continuously looks over at the two people accompanying her and asked them and tells them you know they think I need to lose weight as they both laugh and we continuously start talking about different design aspects and as we do she continuously looks over at them and asks do you think I should wear this will it make me look nice do you think it would look good on my body enough of these questions are asked and answered by them over the hour that were together so much so that by the time that they've left we've designed nothing that would look good on her we have however designed an incredible wedding dress for her fiance that moment was very pivotal for me it was from that moment on that we made the decision to send the following email to all of our clients dear clients this is a gentle reminder of your appointment at our studio in order to ensure that we design a dress that best suits everything that you are we require that your visits to our studio are not accompanied by anyone of course this wasn't taken very well at the beginning and we lost a lot of clients initially eventually people begun to get on board with the process that moment was very pivotal for me because it was from that moment on that we began to decide how it is that we design for our clients because what happens is this I realized that growing up very rarely do we make decisions about things in our lives that are not accompanied by the outside world what then results is I end up getting clients that come to my studio and walk out with dresses that don't suit anything that they are and what happens is it suits everything that the people accompanying them are growing up I was a pro swimmer I had very short hair broccoli head if you will that's what I called it I always believed I'd look like a boy and so did the security guards that continuously ran in after me into the female toilets to notify me that I've just now gone into the women's bathroom enough of this happened over the years and I became so fed up with it but eventually I ended up just lifting my shirt up to prove to them that I was a girl of course that too wasn't received very well something just never felt right I always felt like there wasn't any harmony between what was happening on the inside and how I was on the outside and then the noise that was accompanied by the outside world continuously saying that I was a pro swimmer so of course I was going to be dressed in oversized t-shirts baggy clothes and flip-flops because of that always made me feel like this is how I should be dressing it was only after I became what I believed to be a conscious dresser did I start to feel like there was an overall harmony within me and I had to start asking myself very simple questions do I like this it seems like such a simple question right but how many of us have really stopped to think of the answer that question for ourselves so initially by allowing our clients to come alone and to come unarmed we allowed a space safe space for them to be honest getting them to then bare their soul when we are alone we are most vulnerable and when we are vulnerable it then provides a safe space and a passageway for honesty to come to the surface when I first began to do it it was very difficult for me to be honest with myself about why I thought the way that I did and why my tastes and preferences were the way that they were and it is because that this line of thinking was so difficult for me and very unfamiliar growing up I was bullied a lot at school from about junior kindergarten all the way up to sixth grade every time I had an opinion it was either shot down or made fun of when enough of that begins to happen what happens then is I end up feeling like it's better to keep my pins to myself than to be able to voice my opinions to the outside world and so after years of that happening I ended up not having any opinions for myself to begin with I never really felt like I had a safe space for me to be able to share my opinions and then have it received by the worlds and what I didn't realize at the time was it was never about the world accepting who I was it was always about me accepting myself first and foremost what we do with our clients is then this we end up giving them a safe space for them to be honest with themselves because up for example about the fact that for they want to design in a dress with a slit from the ground all the way up to their tonsils is because they want to feel sexy and a little bit risky and then telling them that that line of thinking is totally okay because if we can get past a simple I want this dress because it's super pretty then we can allow our clients to understand themselves with a little bit more depth than when they walked into our studio as they walk out and after we've provided a safe space for our clients to be able to bare their soul and be honest with themselves we can then begin the third step in our design process helping them to eliminate preconceived notions about what they can and cannot wear and what they should more importantly or should not be wearing at all and then why they thought this way to begin with a few years ago I had a six year old client walk into my studio and say to me my husband is dead and now I want to wear turqoise so while I was super excited that she was ready for a makeover the reality behind the paralyzing nature of our Egyptian culture really hit me at that very moment so when I said to her okay then let's do it let's make a dress with turqoise she said to me oh but wait what are my in-laws gonna think they're gonna think I waited till my husband died so that I could live my life and then I'm thinking because you want to wear turqoise and then how is this any of their business here you have the perfectly okay turquoise dress encounters with my clients have been a series of comments my series of thoughts like what is my father gonna think my mom is gonna kill me if I end up wearing this what are the neighbors gonna say about my personality and then the one that's revisited the most I love this dress it's the issues not me it's my husband most women have a wardrobe for Egypt and another wardrobe for their vacation vacations outside of Egypt and the reason for that is they've decided that over the years it's easier to conform to the overall cultural restrictions than have to scream against it and protest by the way that they're dressed oftentimes they visit our studio with pictures of dresses and then they say oh I want to wear this dress but because not every dress suits every woman we kind of have to start from the beginning with them by asking them why do you like this design and then working our way backwards and then why do you like it and if we're able to kind of backtrack and start from the beginning with them most of the time they come and they tell us oh ok nevermind I didn't really like the dress or perhaps they liked a detailer too but in allowing them to strip themselves of the preconceived notions about what they can wear and what they can't wear and what they should or should not be bearing and starting with the beginning with who am I were able to help them understand who it is they are and why it is they believe things from the beginning the most difficult part of the design process for me is bringing all of this together I have to be really introspective because I have to put aside my own biases about what I initially thought would look best on them and I write what I initially thought of them as a person and try and really see past all that to really understand who my clients are to best design for their personalities their bodies and the events that they plan to attend what happens is this with most of our clients that we end up starting with the design at the beginning and as we go along the design process the design can then morph into something else entirely and there's two reasons for that firstly our clients don't have an entire understanding of who it is they are and they're still experimenting with who they are as they go along and then a lot of the times when they come with frequency of notions that completely changes by the time that we've reached the end of the design process I'm a highly emotional person it's too hysterical is probably a better way to describe it and around the time I was starting my business I had a great deal of emotional ups and downs downs more than ups ups excuse me it's down more than ups I went resulted then is I ended up being in a very very dark place I was diagnosed with the clinical depression at the time and a good few therapists attempted to medicate me I refused something in me just never felt right about that and what happens is this what I decided to do at the time was instead of trying of going through the emotions and allowing my stuff to completely submit to them I was attempting to try and understand myself a little bit better initially what I would do is so my initial thought always at the time was oh my god I'm so depressed and when I initially tried to understand it my first thought afterwards was oh my gosh I'm depressed because my life sucks and then when I was able to put my egos aside and the overwhelming amount of emotions aside I was then able to answer questions a lot more a little bit more logically and tangibly in a way that I could fix them such as I don't have any money I don't know how I'm going to start why did I think I could even start a business and what on earth do I even know about design and then a lot of the times at the beginning I was having to sew everything on my own because I didn't really have the budget to do it so then I would even get more depressed about oh my gosh I've sewn 25 pieces I have about like 200 left to go and eventually if you're able to really understand who you are you end up understanding the negative feelings where they're derived from and understanding that I was able to fully translate these feelings into the things that my clients will then wear because in understanding the person that you're designing for you are then able to translate those emotions and that personality into a piece that they will then wear this brings us to the final step of our design process alignment with the inner self this is a bit more difficult what happens is this ultimately the success of a design is not in designing a great piece alone you have to design something it is an extension of what a person is in designing that you're designing something that is not separate from who they are because people need to see both human and design as one harmonious pastor piece there cannot be a separation of the two many times I've found that clients don't have an understanding of who it is that they are which is evident through the conversations that we have and is evident through the many things that we go through together along the design process because we don't only meet once we meet several times in order for them to have that deeper understanding of who they are so once I'd sit down with them and explain my research process and my line of thinking they're then able to understand and more often than not they are totally ok with it and they totally agree with the kinds of designs that we do most of our clients at the beacon when they come in there you could feel that there's an air of a lack of confidence that's within them because what they were wearing most of the time and they end up telling us later is not in line with who they are as a person you see there's like an extraordinary transformation that happens for a person when they're able to wear something that feels like their own skin her back is taller she smiles more she stands up straight and there is an overwhelming amount of joy that overcomes her entire being the simple act of waking up in the morning and choosing to be a certain way and deciding what will go on your body is one of the most decisions that you will make every single day in your life what I think most people don't realize is this if our clothing is an extension of who we are and we neglect it's we discourage it and we're not true to it ultimately we're taking away and we are denying who it is we choose to be as human beings in making our clients come alone to our studio and unarmed guiding them to help them bare their soul and then encouraging them to rid themselves of pre-existing notions of what the world around them thinks they should be and then helping a-line their outers extremes with their inner self we are helping them then carry them through to outer alignment we're allowing them the space to choose who it is they really want to be this idea is so powerful that it then carries on into our everyday lives if you can wake up every single morning and make a decision about what it is you want to be through the one thing that is the most obvious form of self-expression and the extension of who you are as human beings then the realizes that you begin to realize that anything in the world is then possible simply because you have chosen to be thank you [Applause] you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 40,278

Rating: 4.8927374 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Life, Art, Design, Fashion

Id: eo9VSfCBqEE

Length: 13min 12sec (792 seconds)

Published: Tue May 08 2018