OUR FOUNDER OF THE WEEK- Every Tuesday, Founder of the Week looks at how a successful member of Egypt’s startup community got their big break, asks about their experiences running a business, and gets their advice for budding entrepreneurs. Speaking to us this week is Sara Elemary, Founder and Creative Director at Sara Elemary.

I’m Sara Elemary, the founder, creative director, and CEO of Sara Elemary — most importantly, however, I’m a dreamer and somewhat of a rebel. Sara Elemary is a modest Egyptian womenswear brand that is bold, authentic, and free. The brand stems from my own personality, and exists to fight for the values I believe in.

I wanted to study fashion, but back then that wasn’t a thing in Egypt. I ended up studying marketing at the Arab Academy For Science, Technology & Maritime Transport, and while I wouldn’t say my academic background had much impact on my career, it taught me one pivotal lesson — negotiation. What really affected my career, however, was witnessing my father run his business; I would accompany him on his business trips and attend his meetings — and in doing so, I taught myself how to do business.

For years, I did nothing — I was a mother. I’ve always had this intrinsic belief that I would one day pursue something in fashion, but I never quite imagined that I could actually do it. I never thought of myself as a businesswoman. One day, four years after I graduated, I woke up and decided it was time to do something.

I wanted to start my own modest fashion brand because I felt the gap in the market firsthand. I was veiled at the time, and I struggled to find something that suited me; I couldn’t see myself in anything I tried wearing — my personality was dimmed by what I wore, and I knew I had to do something that spoke to who I was as a person.

15 years ago, the fashion industry in Egypt lacked the necessary tools and know-how required for what I wanted to create. There’s a difference between a fashion business and a fashion brand; building a brand needs a story, one that carries on chapter by chapter; collection by collection. Fashion businesses on the other hand entail just pushing out pieces for profit. There were two paths ahead of me; a quick fashion business was easy money, and a brand came with its challenges; when you offer something that has a story, has its own values, that comes at a cost — literally.

Naturally, I faced many challenges. I didn’t know where to manufacture, where to source materials. I didn’t even know how patterns were made. There were so many barriers, and the biggest challenge was introducing a high-end modestwear brand to a local market that was unfamiliar with what I wanted to offer. But I fought for it, and I taught myself everything from scratch — I had no manual. Until this day, 15 years later, I’m still figuring things out.

What makes Sara Elemary different from all the other brands out there is our story. We’re not followers; there’s a core value that guides us. What I’m selling, I believe, is not just fabric or fashion, but emotions. I want women to be able to wear bold, modest clothes that speak to their personality and reflect their confidence — and that’s what we offer.

Success comes at different times and in different ways. I think the first time I truly felt successful was when the brand was featured on Vogue Arabia. Whenever anyone comes up to me and says: “your brand helped me and made it easier for me to dress modestly”, that makes me feel incredibly successful. It’s easy to sell clothes, and easier to make money, but what’s hard is to add value to people’s lives — and that to me is success.

In five years, for the brand’s 20th anniversary, I want the brand to go regional. We’ve been digging into the regional market for quite some time now, and over the next few years, I hope for us to be well-established. We’ve already started marketing for the brand across the region and there’s growing interest in the brand in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait.

Manoeuvring through the recent economic challenges wasn’t easy. We pushed out our existing stock, because it was important to liquidate that. We had to revisit our pricing and we cut costs as much as we possibly could. Compared to the local market, what we offer is relatively expensive, and yet we tried to cater our pricing to the market as best we could — but we still find ourselves covering our costs. If we approached pricing the same way many other high-end brands do, everything would be so much more expensive, and that would be asking too much of our customers. It’s difficult for businesses during these times.

The industry lacks identity — so many brands are just carbon copies of one another. There are only so many brands in the Egyptian fashion industry that are instantly recognizable without a label, everything else looks and feels the same. I have no issue with fast fashion, but that’s not what it means to be a fashion designer. I wish there was more creativity and more consistency; many brands skip out on entire seasons and collections, and that’s simply not how it should be. I want to see more brands that know their “whys” — brands with stories and goals.

Helping women discover and embrace who they are through fashion has been the most rewarding aspect of this business. So often in life do women find themselves in a cycle that goes back and forth between marriage, motherhood, and career — and so who they truly are inside is lost in the process. The Sara Elemary brand exists to break that cycle and help them express themselves, and when it does, it serves its purpose.

Truth be told, running a business requires you to be harsh — especially for women. I’m personally against women letting go of their femininity, but the reality is that in business, masculinity sometimes needs to take over; sometimes you have to be the harsh, hard, bad boss. If you’re caught being too lenient, you’ll be taken advantage of.

When I leave the office, I’m a completely different person — and that’s important. I’ve tried hard in the past to have some sort of work-life balance, and 15 years later, I feel like I’ve cracked the code. Prioritizing your personal life is important, and as humans, we don’t just exist to run companies; our lives encompass so much more than just what we do, and it would be unfair to dedicate the entirety of it to work. If you do that, you’ll hate it.

A book I’m currently reading and would recommend is The Pivot Year by Brianna Wiest. I’m into self-help books — especially ones that don’t bore me out. This book consists of just one page for each day; sometimes it’s as short as a paragraph or a few lines, but it helps me reflect on things.

I always knew I wanted to pursue two things in life; fashion… and the clouds. If I weren’t the brain behind my business, I’d be a professional skydiving instructor. I started skydiving in an indoor training facility for two years until I became a professional indoor skydiver, but I figured, why stop there? It’s always been a dream of mine to touch the clouds.

If I were to go back in time, I’d give myself a round of applause. I did what I could considering my circumstances; I was a mother and my children were very young when I started the brand. There was nothing more that I could do that I hadn’t already done, but if I were to give my younger self a piece of advice, it would be to slow down, let go of perfectionism, and embrace the fact that we all have flaws.

Here’s a piece of advice if you’re planning on starting your own fashion brand: know your story. It’s alright to follow existing directions until you’re able to form one of your own; until you realize one day, “this is where I see myself.” It’s important to pause every now and then and ask yourself the important questions; why am I doing this? Where will this take me? How is this adding value to my life? To develop a brand identity, you must first know yours.