Episode 186: Nadine Merabi

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2:10Hello, I'm Safiya DeSpexter and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it all work. I'm a singer and I've released eight albums in between having my five sons, aged between seven years old and nearly 22. So I spin a few plates myself. Being a mother can be the most amazing thing, but it can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. I want to be a little bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. Welcome to Spinning Plates.

2:52Hello, it's morning here in this space and time when I'm speaking to you. And I'm walking back home after dropping the kids at school. And actually, it's been a pretty peaceful morning. all is well. We're kind of in that nice bit where the exams, the kids were having any sort of end of turn tests were kind of finishing up. So everybody's a little bit more relaxed. And yeah, heading towards a weekend where I've got no work which is really precious. Especially at the moment when I know it's my last weekend like that for a little while. So we've got a nice weekend planned. Nice and local. Everybody's got a few things going on.

3:36And I've actually booked quite a nice Sunday lunch on Sunday because I got muddled up and thought it was Father's Day. I was like, check me out. Got myself a good booking at a good time. And it's like, oh, it's because it's not Father's Day. So taking Richard out with all the boys, which will be very sweet. And this week has been really quiet for singing, which has actually been kind of what I needed because I love doing what I do, but sometimes I feel like my voice just needs some quiet time. When I say quiet, I always use it all the time anyway. But I did one thing last night, which funnily enough was probably brought about by spinning plates because it's a former guest, Alex Head, who I saw last night.

4:21She is CEO of a catering company called Social Pantry and they were celebrating their 15th birthday and it was really joyful. Everybody in the room seemed so happy and the place looked great. It was in Mansion House, a really fancy ballroom. It looked glorious and it was really special. I actually say ballroom, I think they called it the Egyptian room. I didn't pick up on much Egyptian going on, but maybe I was a bit blinded by the lights and the disco balls that adorned the space. And everything else has been ticking over nicely. I've got some nice bits of bobs I've actually recorded. Not one, not two, but three podcast episodes for you this week.

5:01and just been kind of catching up on admin and trying to prep myself a little bit because it's about to get busy. Next week I've got gigs in France, Hampton Court Palace, Copenhagen, the week after we've got two in the Netherlands and another one in France. So it's just going to be a bit more like living out of hand luggage only bags for the next couple of weeks, but that's okay. I can do it. Spring back and forth and really, It sounds usually going to France or something, but really, you can kind of commute it, can't you? It's not too far. Anyway, never mind all that. Hope everything's right with you.

5:39And this week's guest, fashion designer, Nadine Morabi. Now, I've been wearing Nadine Morabi clothes for quite a while now. In fact, some of my absolute stage favourites are her dresses. They are really nicely tailored. They've got some very thoughtful details. They flatter you. they feel like they're made for real people a lot of the dresses have pockets they have nice colors some of them are race sparkly and i think she's really clever in what she's built because it's at a price point where you can get something really special and really well made but it's not kind of it's the sort of level where i think if you had something really important and a dress you wanted to wear over and over again, you would find it.

6:30And, yeah, if you do invest in one of her things, I would say they're really well made. Proper lining, you know, look, I jump around in my dresses and I've never had any issues with seams or straps or buttons or anything. And so I was curious, who is Nadine Murabi, who's the woman behind the name of the, it's been sewn into the back of so many things. and she's a really fascinating, lovely, bright woman and unusual in her role, not because she's not talented, she's clearly very talented, but because she didn't come from a fashion background. And look, breaking into that sort of luxury women's wear business is a big deal.

7:15And she's been now, Nadine Murabi, the label, is over 10 years old and Nadine has two little girls. But she built it from really wanting to find her own thing. She used to be in sport. She was a hockey player for England, no less. And used to like to dress up and enjoy her clothes in the evening. Was quite shy outside of sport. But through fashion, kind of found the confidence. Got into running evening events and working with people and nightlife in Manchester. And just thought, there's a gap here. there's a gap for some really great clothes started making things for herself people said that's great and just managed to upscale it and i think it can't be underestimated how successfully she's done it because from what the little i understand of business and from speaking to other entrepreneurs building something up and growing a business at pace that means that the business sustains that growth and it all works is really very so you've got to be very carefully curated with a really strong team.

8:22And Nadine will take you through some of the times when it's felt much more stressful. But yeah, super impressive. So I'm going to, I'm actually going to go and grab a coffee now. My boy's working in the coffee truck today, so I'm going to go and see him while we listen back to a conversation I had with Nadine not too long ago. And I'm pretty sure it comes up in the chat, but she's also very good at paddle, like really good. This is relevant to me, not because I play, I don't, but because Richard is obsessed, loves Perville. Anyway, so for Perville lovers, England, coffee team lovers, and lovers that are total dresses everywhere.

8:57Yeah, so why don't we start with the here and now. What is going on in your work world at the moment? Work world, so I've just flown in from Berlin. I was at the World Retail Congress yesterday and last night. It's actually quite cool because the year before, I'd won Entrepreneur of the Year 25, so they actually wanted me to present the 26th winner. So it's a cool event and it's nice to be globally recognised as an actual brand and designer, which felt a bit surreal a couple of years ago. But yeah, we are creating our team, our leadership team, and we've got a store now in London and we're set to open our second store.

9:43and we just kind of opened the European market, making sure we can still sell to the US because obviously with the tariffs and everything, we used to have one hub of a warehouse, which was all in the UK and now we need a warehouse in the US, UK and Europe. So there's a lot going, a lot of plates spinning. There really is. And it's interesting when you said that going to the, you won the award last year, the retail awards and you feel like it's nice to go because if only a few years ago that would have felt like quite a different kind of space for you. But your brand is now over 10 years old. So does that mean that it's taken those years to actually get to a point where you don't have that feeling of, not imposter syndrome exactly, but just settling into this is actually something you can take ownership of and it can stand up without having to always explain or qualify or justify it?

10:35Yeah, definitely. Honestly, when I won the award last year, I was a bit like, why have I won this award? What have I done? And everyone's like, 100 % you deserve this award. So I think when I went back this year, I was a lot more relaxed. I had a few drinks last night at the awards. The year before, I was like, oh my goodness, I'll just have one glass of champagne or something. I've got to go up on stage and make a speech. But yeah, I think I'm getting more relaxed, but I'm also just, I'm very natural and real. So I think people are quite surprised when they meet me although yesterday obviously in the daytime it was the kind of congress and people were coming up to me um saying oh you know love your brand it's so nice to meet you and then I'd start speaking and they're like whoa I wasn't expecting you to speak like that I was like what do you mean like are you Mancunian I was like yeah what did you expect well that's actually something I was thinking about not specifically being Mancunian by the way but more that um because I've been listening to some other podcasts that you've done and you mentioned when we started chatting that, you know, some of the other chats you've had are quite serious and they're quite weighted in this entrepreneurial world.

11:41And there's almost an expectation of what an entrepreneur looks like, how they manage their day, the sort of termology, quite serious. Yeah. Quite straight. Almost like a different type of person to anybody else, if you know what I mean. Like a different lane. And I was actually going to ask you if you felt like you had to inhabit, like a put on, sorry to use this sort of pun of wardrobe, but almost put on like a suit of a different version of yourself just to reassure people that your entrepreneur and your entrepreneurialism was going to match the expectation of what that looks like. Yeah, so that's how it started.

12:27And at first I was like, I need to speak a certain way. I need to use longer words. I need to, like you say, act like an entrepreneur. And all that was happening was I'd go and do an interview or something and I'd have all my answers prepped. And then I realized that I was like, it just doesn't feel authentic. I could actually just say this more meaningfully. fully and um and now i'm at the point where with any interview with anything i'm like i don't mind flashing over the questions before i start but i don't want them more than like a couple of minutes before and i just want to speak from my heart and just speak naturally because i've realized as well and like i say when i go and do these um congresses and forums and the rest of it you know there's people that are just word perfect and they're kind of reading from a script and it's it sounds like great what they're saying but it doesn't go into me it doesn't you know it doesn't feel like I can fully understand or relate to it and I'd rather kind of maybe say 20 % of the things which people can actually listen to relate to and feel like they understand it than say 100 % of the things where it's quite automated um so I've just got to be more relaxed really and not care what people think well yeah I think it I think it comes across but I just thought it was interesting because I was listening to, I suppose, you know, if you're looking at a business chat, they often are quite grown up in tone and it has got that sort of, how can I term it?

14:01I suppose there's phrases around it that make it feel like, almost like an athletic type of mind space. But actually, it made me think a bit about how you've had different hats on throughout your working life and actually coming to it as your own person can be such a super strength. And ultimately, when you're in an office space, it is about the personal relationships that get formed. Otherwise, people can work elsewhere. It comes down to the people under that roof and how they communicate with one another. So I think it's kind of under... It's not really given the space that it's significant and important.

14:39Yeah. It just actually reminded me. It was just touching on what you said. It was about four years ago now. and a lady called Nicola Mendelsohn. She's kind of the vice president of Meta. She's like super, super power woman. And I've known her for quite a few years and she knows what I'm like. She's actually from up north. She lives in New York now, but she's like a northern woman. And we have a laugh and the rest of it. And anyway, she did this recorded interview and at the end of it, she was like, what was that? And I was like, what do you mean? She was like, that's not you. And I was like, I know, but I was just trying to sound really you know like I knew what I was doing and everything she was like honestly Nadine just be yourself like that's how people want to see people so I think it was actually from that because I felt not many things in life which I've come away with and I felt quite disappointed in myself after I'd kind of done it and I was like there's no point trying to be someone you're not because it just doesn't work that's true but also you know it takes a certain type of person who knows you and feel confident to actually say what was that and why you're talking about someone else other people just go that's really lovely thanks the worst thing was I couldn't say one of the words properly I think I was like trying to say it eloquently or something and I was like but actually you're there are lots of what you're saying makes total sense to me but also it really um contributes to how I was sort of forming you in my head before we met because I was thinking there were things that really struck me.

16:11Firstly, you give me an opportunity to use a word I absolutely love, which is autodidact, because I love it when you get to put that into conversation because it doesn't come up very often. But I didn't realize how self-taught you are. It's extraordinary that literally learning to sew on YouTube and building the business just through a desire to make this work. And whilst you've obviously had lots of challenges, one thing that really sung out, even though you even spoke about not really loving school and not feeling like you're really academically sitting where you felt like that it reflected who you were but you've got this real lack of self-doubt and I wondered is that something that does that come from your childhood is that from your own parents yeah do you know I don't actually know and I can't pinpoint it but in fact I do kind of know I always wanted to kind of like fit in and I'm actually not someone that fits in and so when you spend so many years trying to be what you'd say normal you know I had an unusual name my dad was so eclectic um you know we you know spent a lot of our time over in Lebanon and I don't know I just had this weird feeling that I couldn't be myself and I just wanted to be like everyone else obviously as you get older that changes but when you're young you actually do just want to kind of fit in and be normal with everyone um I don't really know why or what I wasn't like I say I wasn't academic I wasn't um I didn't really know what I wanted to do at school and then to be honest it actually annoys me the educational system why they say to a 14 15 year old or 16 year old or even a 21 year old what do you want to be when you what what do you want to be career wise I'm like I don't know I've not even lived life yet you know stop pressurizing me to go down a certain route and um it was actually hockey that um I started playing hockey when I went to secondary school I didn't actually really like it at the beginning I was like this is giving me a bad back it's very dangerous sport anyway I've started to realize that um it got me out of detentions and stuff so I was like okay this this is handy this sport um and it was kind of I just got put through the system then I started playing for county and north and then England over 10 years then so I guess even when I look back at my hockey days where you know the hockey taught me amazing things resilience teamwork even the point where I was like vice captain a lot of the time and not because I was the best player but I think I championed the team and understood the real the importance of culture and um how if you if you all work together you can actually achieve a goal um but even when we i remember we used to go to like lily shore for training weekends um and week and weeks and things and i would get dressed up in the not dressed up i'd you know put a nice top on with some jeans and we'd go for dinner or you know the team together and even then like and they're not mean girls and stuff but you know just someone saying to you why are you so dressed up and I'd be like well I'm actually just dressing for myself I want to like make a bit of an effort because I've just been in a tracksuit or shin pads and a hockey kit all day but I think even things like that it hurts it really does hurt when you're younger and like I say these weren't nasty girls it was just maybe more their insecurity of thinking oh I probably should make more of an effort and I'm not doing so I'll just question why that person has and I think that's where my love of just dressing for me and dressing for making myself feel good kind of has always been there but I've obviously got it kind of shut down many times as well yeah well that's I can totally picture all that and it's interesting isn't it how wearing what you want to wear can be a very it can be a silent rebellion really against something but I suppose if your survival instinct has always been keeping your head down trying to you know homogenize and iron out the bits of you that made you feel different then when you do do it and someone says something part of you is pushing against what the typical and another part of you that I wish you hadn't brought that up because that's actually yeah that's actually hurting my feelings and it's taken a lot for me for to even get to this point it's like a it's that dual thing of trying to push against it but also wanting it not to be spoken about like that and it's sad really because and this is why you know I've got two young girls and I want to make sure that they don't go through necessarily what I went through kind of thinking about myself and mentally but it's quite sad to think that it took up to the age of 29 for me to stop caring what people thought about me and honestly I was exhausted I was exhausted trying to be someone I'm not exhausted caring what everyone thought and I liken it to um have you seen the film happy feet yeah honestly yeah but you know eventually it's like it's trying not to dance trying not to dance trying not to dance and eventually it's just like I can't help it I just need to go and I think that's what happened to me honestly I got to the point where I was like I'm just gonna like combust or something if I don't just do my creative thing that I want to do and you know people come up to me and I say oh you're such an entrepreneur you're such a great business woman you know even women who are in business now saying advice how to do it I'm like honestly I did not start this with this brilliant kind of business plan in mind.

21:42I genuinely started this because I couldn't find anything to wear. So it all began with me just making clothes for myself to wear. I never thought that I'd be in a position where I could make things for other women to wear, but that's just where it kind of, it started with me making my own clothes and then people coming up to me and saying, oh, can you make me something? Can you make me something? And I think this is where I always say to anyone kind of in business is don't wait for everything to be like perfect just you know start somewhere and actually that doesn't mean that it's going to go the path you even think it's going to go it could just open up another door and you know yeah so yeah it's been insightful well with that in mind are you are you the sort of person that makes like five-year plans or are you someone that's a bit more following your instinct for the way you find yourself now so I'd definitely make plans however you've just got to be really agile and move and like you know gone are the days where even as a business you make a 12-month plan yes you'll make a 12-month plan but every month it gets reassessed and you know you can change your kind of strategy as and when you need to it's it just can't be that this is our 12-month and three-year plan now it just doesn't work like that I mean all the everything that's going on in the world you can't even guess what's what's going to happen next type thing so very true um i think in in business in general and actually in every career really you've got to have so much more agility and ability to pivot than ever before but actually i'm thinking if you're the sort of person that could spend a decade building up to playing for england hockey do you feel now with your work that you've actually reached where you were supposed to be does it feel like it's all converged or are you feeling like this there could be other things out there um in terms of doing something else do you mean yeah just in terms of following your i have i have got a new paddle career i feel like i might have left it a bit too late in the in in my age but um no i'm just joking that's socially but i'm like it's not really that socially i take it very seriously um i actually started it with um me and my husband and i was like it'd be so nice for us to do a sport together and now I'm like I can't play with you you're gonna say no you don't see I mean it's like I'll see you later I have to finish my 12 paddles I've got the worst thing is with Playtomic um I don't know if you know this but it's like you to like Frank can see if I've played a paddle game you can't even hide it it's like it's like the affair you can't have because you get caught it's just open for everyone to see if you've played um no I think you know for me, Merabi is very much kind of where I want to be.

24:28It gives me the freedom to be fully creative. It gives me the freedom to create a team and, you know, like even seeing the team where they started and now, you know, they're getting a mortgage or they're buying a bigger house and they're having family and, you know, just to feel like I'm actually part of that is like quite special. Yeah, it's really glorious. And I'm, because I've heard you talk about how the heart of your brand is a desire to instill confidence in young women and it makes such sense especially talking to you firsthand and hearing your own relationship with just allowing yourself to be exactly who you are and not feeling need to iron bits out it's such a it's such a simple thing but look how much it unlocks it's crazy the power of it really um so if we could talk about the other p in your life not paddle but parenting uh so you have your own two small women uh only four and five so they're still pretty dinky but is that something you always wanted were you always thinking you might have children one day if you could do you know what i i actually thought there was something wrong with me or i was like weird or something because i never could see myself as a mother um i also never could see myself as a wife or something i don't know why it's just something I'd never really thought about or even thought you know someone would want to marry me type thing so when I met my um husband Frank he you know I felt like we were very chalk and cheese anyway and you know he comes from a nice family you know good background he went to boarding school and I'm like some northern girl that kind of just you know chanced away through life type thing and not from a big family or anything.

26:12So even that I was questioning. And I remember the first kind of six months to a year of us dating, I kept pushing him away because I was like, oh, well, you should go and marry some posh girl instead or something like that. And again, it's not his fault. That was my own insecurities. So, yeah, I don't know. And even when he proposed to me, I was like, oh, I didn't even think about that. I didn't really know. I don't know. I just never, I don't think too far in advance on my personal life, to be honest. I'm kind of like live each day as it is. And yeah, I always just thought, God, I don't know if I, it's not that I didn't want to be a mum.

26:52I just didn't think about it. Yeah, or even maybe know what that would look like. Yeah. I always act like I'm like 21 anyway. So I'm like, it'll be fine. It'll just happen. Something will happen. I think I actually said, I said, I didn't want to stress about it. And I was like, I'll just have two kids before I'm 40. And actually, I had one at 38 and one at 39. Yeah, they were close together. And both natural home births as well, which is super impressive. Honestly, though, my mindset changed completely, just completely flipped. So we got pregnant and I was like, didn't know anything about kind of birthing or anything like that.

27:29And, you know, along with many, many women, probably watched the films of them screaming and in pain and the rest of it. So I was just like, listen, I'm really busy with work. I'm just going to go into the hospital, have every drug possible and just get the baby out. That was in kind of January, February time. And then in March, I was seven months pregnant and COVID hit March 2020. And all of a sudden there was obviously, you know, absolute kind of stress with the business with, you know, every occasion in the world was cancelled. so you know being a women's occasion wear brand wasn't great at the time yeah talk about needing to think on your feet with that I guess so we um and then the hospitals weren't letting husbands in and it was one it was at the point where you know do you remember when you didn't know if you're going to touch your door handle and you might die the next day type thing so I didn't even feel safe going into the hospitals so I actually got introduced to a doula and they introduced me to hypnobirthing and I spent the next two months hypnobirthing and training my mind and ended up getting um two private midwives and had a natural home birth without anything and I was like that's just the power of the mind isn't it because you know that goes to show where and and to be fair the the the good thing about COVID is I probably wouldn't have done that if it wasn't for COVID because I wouldn't have had the time to stop, think, assess, and actually sit there or go to bed listening to hypnobirthing because when you're in business, when you're in a family, when you've got everything going on, everything's just swilling around so quickly, whereas it gave me that time to pause and actually think, okay, I could do this birth a different way.

29:16And I don't want to be that woman that kind of talks about how amazing her births were, but I do think there's so many negative birthing stories out there. I don't think enough women talk about how you can have a lovely, beautiful experience as well. So, yeah, I had two really, really nice home births. And the second one, I was like, I didn't even wake Frank up for until, like, the very end. I was like, you just stay asleep. I know what to do. I know what to do. Wow. But I had, like, a pool in there, and that's lovely when you go into the pool afterwards. And I think, again, during the whole pregnancy, I'd kind of kept myself fit.

29:52I'd mentally trained myself and I'm all for kind of positive affirmations. Again, I wasn't like this before COVID. Okay. And, you know, I was like telling myself that everything was going to be fine and the baby was going to be fine. And I do think there's an element of how kind of life can happen when you think positively. And that's something you said you hadn't really necessarily paid much attention to that before you? Not really at all. Even like meditation, if someone said the word meditation, I'd be like, sounds a little bit kind of fluffy to me. Or maybe just quite hard if you're a busy-minded person.

30:25So how would you still involve it in your life now? Yeah, 100%. So I really struggle after a busy, busy day, and I know I've got so much to do the next day going to sleep. So I'll just put meditation on. And all it does is it stops your mind from swilling around and thinking it all. But since the kids go to bed now, I don't know if you know, do you know what Tony is? Yeah. So it's basically just the Tony. It's just an adult Tony. they're just telling you a story or getting you to think about something and take your mind off it so I mean for me meditation in the evening is just someone telling me a story yeah because some of them are like um some of the apps have yeah they set a scene and take you into space and just give you permission I suppose just to let go because I'd imagine there's so much if you really stop to think about the pressure of you know running the business it's got your name on it ultimately days.

31:17So it's always comes down to you. That's a lot to handle. The pressure to have a summer worth posting about is real. So is financial stress, social exhaustion, and the anxiety that sneaks in right when things are supposed to feel good. Grow Therapy can help with that. Whether it's your first time in therapy or your 50th, Grow makes it easier to find a therapist who fits you, not the other way around. They connect you with thousands of independent licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions nights and weekends. Whatever challenges you're facing, Grow Therapy is here to help.

31:59Grow accepts over 100 insurance plans. Sessions average about$21 with insurance, and some pay as little as$0, depending on their plan. Visit growtherapy.com slash ACAST today to get started. That's growtherapy.com slash ACAST. growtherapy.com slash ACAST. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Host unforgettable backyard barbecues with savings from Whole Foods Market. Get the good times going with made-in-house chicken or pork sausages and ready-to-cook kebabs for hassle-free flavor. Grab tasty flatbreads and their new balsamic chicken salad in the prepared foods department.

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33:22If you've used Babbel, you would. Babbel's conversation-based technique teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world. With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers, Babbel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babbel today. Get up to 55 % off your Babbel subscription right now at babbel.com slash acast. Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash acast. Rules and restrictions may apply. and how have you thought about how to help your daughters with their confidence given that this has been such a keystone part of your motivation and your how you're made up yeah i i mean i'm hoping that through the brand it will be instilled with them because you know at the core of merabi we are very much like we designed to make women feel great about themselves um so i'm hoping that but i'm just very much like every time they walk into a room i'm like i'll give them a compliment or i'll say that they've done something well and you don't understand the importance of that just that tiny little word and if it's just done every day they all of a sudden start kind of feeling more confident well i'm hoping i'm hoping that happens anyway and i don't know it's like i don't think it's that I didn't have it as a kid but I don't think people realize how it can actually shape your kind of personality and shape your positive outlook with it well I guess as well and I might be you know getting this wrong but if you're first generation British Lebanese as well that's a new you're you're carrying your parents are doing their best to help you yeah with finding that but as I understand you spent some of your early years in the Lebanon and coming back and forth as you said so you're immediately not part of maybe with the typical and you're finding that as well yeah I don't know and I think just having like a solid family at home like Frank the father their father is just incredible he's just such a good dad and to be fair my dad was a really good dad but I actually think it all kind of fell to pieces like my mum and dad split up when I was 14 and then my dad passed when I was 18 and I just felt lost I just and I didn't really have any family in the UK.

35:48My mum was living in France with her new husband and, you know, she would come over every so often, but I just literally had no cousins, no aunties, no uncles, no one. And I just felt really like alone and lost and not sure. I wasn't particularly good at anything other than playing hockey. I wasn't experienced or trained at anything. And I I was like, I don't know what I'm going to do or how I'm going to survive. But, you know, the one good thing about it was, you know, I didn't really have anything. I didn't have any cash to lose or anything like that. So I was like, it kind of gives you an added drive where you're like, listen, if I don't do this, I'm not going to be able to survive.

36:31Like there's no one that's going to bail me out here or help me. So you'd be surprised how much that kind of does give you drive and resilience and the desire to actually create something. Yeah, I mean, I'm sorry as well because 18 is so little to lose a parent and to find yourself without a safety net in every way at that point is a big deal. Yeah, I think at that point I just got, literally, he passed and then I went to uni and I didn't really know what I was doing at uni to be honest. I just kind of got sent through the system of playing hockey and I ended up getting a scholarship through the kind of English Hockey Association.

37:10And then I came home after year one to an empty house with all my dad's wardrobe and stuff. And I was like, okay, this is kind of, because I didn't go home in between because I was like, I just can't handle it. And then I went back to uni and I just was like, what am I doing? So I think I was like a quarter of the way through year two and I just quit. I was like, I don't want to be a quitter, but this is not healthy for me. It's not, you know. So I came back to Manchester and went away and did a ski season, tried loads of things. I went to work in a bar. This is actually, this taught me a lot actually because I went to work in a really, really nice bar where you've got a lot of kind of entrepreneurs, businessmen, women, you know, and then you get like the local TV stars and footballers and stuff, you know, people who just wanted to spend money.

38:02anyway you know everyone who worked in this worked in this bar wanted to be like in the best bit working behind the bar nobody wanted to be the glass collector nobody at all and I was like I actually want to be the glass collector and they were like why that's the worst job I was like no no I actually really like it I want to be the glass collector and actually the reason why was because I got to walk around and speak to everyone I got to network so for me this wasn't working this was networking getting me to the next stage and you know it's even things like that where you just have to be thinking outside of the box where how you can get to know that person how you can get to create an opportunity for yourself um so yeah it was I love that I really love that I think it's stealthy and smart but also really genuine because actually when you're walking around you probably can be like I'm not sure about those people this one's really warm is even people if they make eye contact if they're smiley if they're welcoming sometimes those those jobs can be really under the radar so you can observe and watch and listen yeah and i think what's really important is having no ego like you know how that wouldn't have got me very far if i had an ego and thought i'm not looking like the the glass collector when i should be stood behind the bar and i was like i don't have an ego i'm just going to do what i need to do to kind of get me through to the next stage.

39:24And it was actually after that where I kind of got a bit more of my entrepreneurial mindset where someone approached me and said, listen, I'm going to start doing events in Manchester. We can create the events on Facebook. We take the venue. We tell the owner we'll give them X amount guaranteed bar spend. We sort out the DJ and we get the guest list sorted. I was like this is brilliant this is you know and this is when you could create an event on Facebook which was completely free and you would basically just say this is where the party's at and you can only get in if you're on the guest list and it honestly I don't even know and I don't know what happened in London but in Manchester it was like every Friday and Saturday it was just completely and you know really busy and we charge everyone 20 pounds to come in which you know you like four or five grand on the door on a night.

40:22And I was like, whoa, I've never kind of made money like this. And I think that's where, firstly, it got me to the point where I could live. And secondly, it was from that where my mind changed, where I was like, I'm enjoying what I'm doing. I feel like I'm learning marketing skills. I feel like I'm, again, meeting and networking people. But I was like, I can't find anything to wear. it was from doing all those events and I was like I don't want to just kind of on a night out wear something from Zara I mean by the way I do love Zara I wear Zara a lot in the day I get your point I didn't want to just wear something more like run of the mill and I also didn't have or I didn't have say£3 ,000 or£2 ,000 for a dress and I also didn't agree with spending that much on a dress anyway and I think that's where my price point position comes from with the brand as well like what's fair and what's right.

41:20So I genuinely one day was like, it just can't be that hard to make a dress. And so I went and bought a sewing machine, went to local haberdashery store, bought some offcuts of fabric, which even that in itself. What were the first fabrics you? Just random. So it was like, it was what was available. I'm imagining sparkly, but. But it was what was available at first. Yeah, it was all sparkles and stuff. But it was what was available. So, you know, sometimes you could have one and a half meters of a certain fabric. That all of a sudden puts you in a position where this limits you to what you can do, what style and what design you can do, which I love.

41:58You know, sometimes if someone gave you 10 meters of something, you've got more options. Yeah, which can be really overwhelming. Really overwhelming, yeah. So I quite liked having these offcuts of fabrics from these baskets. And honestly, they were cheap as anything. to be like I've only got so much of this I'm gonna make sure it's got this featured role exactly or it's gonna be the shoulders or it's gonna be or I was like I've not got enough for that okay we'll do it backless because we've got enough fabric for the back and stuff so it was you know that for me was a I was able to create but b I was like working things out as well um it's kind of engineering too isn't it yeah and I've heard people say that if you can create clothes then actually you're doing a quite a lot of quite advanced engineering as well it's like building anything well i mean the truth is i can't draw so i would see something in my head exactly how i wanted it and i try and draw it on paper and i'm like whoa that's not how i see it in my head so that's why i had to learn how to sew just to kind of create what what it was that that i could see in my head there's so many people i know that are creatives um they don't necessarily follow the that that style of training or that it's more about how they visualize it and then can act as long as you can actually share your vision somehow some way yeah it's working and I feel it'd be very easy to get lost in the in the brilliance of how much you've achieved in the sense of business but I really want to talk to you about the beauty in your clothes because from my point of view the reason I really love what you do is because the clothes are really gorgeous they're really thoughtfully designed the shapes and the silhouettes are perfect they They always work the magic exactly the same time every time I put them on.

43:40But also they feel luxe. I think you're right about when you said about the price point. You get, you know, proper lining, pockets, beautiful beading, you know, an extra belt, straps you can take off. There's so much care and attention. Where does, it's so extraordinary to hear you talk about your, I suppose your business brain and also your sort of survival instincts, but then you've channeled it into such beautiful things. these are really beautiful clothes yeah I think it's not just what something looks like though it has it has to make someone feel good about themselves and you know as women we know that if we put something on and we it makes us feel fat or it makes us feel pale or it makes us feel anything but our best self then it doesn't matter how nice it looks on a hanger or on a model on on the website you know it's not achieved the goal of giving us confidence so for me it's more just well it's equally as important for it to be a beautifully looking product but then making sure that it kind of pulls you in in all the right places it feels premium it feels like you're actually treating yourself and even like you know I remember like even when I started creating them and people were like why are you using that outer Italian crepe for lining and I was like because it holds you more like the structure really holds you or even like on my jumpsuits I'll do the inner bodice longer than kind of the waist point where the boning is just because even me for a woman I know that if it cuts me in at the waist especially as a jumpsuit I'm like I've got a bit of splodge you know that waist splodge if you've got something tight here which you can get away with with a fit and flare dress but you can't with um with a jumpsuit so even the thought of right I'm going to make it a longer lined kind of um inner corset just to make sure that that woman feels yeah super confident and this is all stuff you've just learned through buying fabric and testing things out this I learned a lot from doing bespoke first so I got to listen and understand what women liked what they didn't like what their insecurities were you know and so when I design my dresses jumpsuits all my collections now it's always with a certain woman in mind and a certain woman's insecurities or a certain woman's you know bits that they love about themselves and a lot of the time well still now to this day I'll name the dress after someone who I either know would suit that dress or if it's someone I don't know it's like my imaginary person I know that that person would be called that if she was wearing that dress but there's always like a person like a character in mind yeah i love that and actually the other thing i wanted to ask you about is if you've sometimes felt you know you've worn the clothes that feel um give you confidence but then sometimes you felt insecure if someone's pointed out was there a thought about giving your name to the business because i've often wondered about what it's like to have a brand where that brand is i mean i suppose i have a little bit with my music

46:52I'm like you do know you talked about yourself here don't you I feel like I've had quite a long time to get used to it though you're right I'm actually making me blush I've sort of overlooked quite a significant point there but okay I get what you mean I get what you mean if I do turn it on myself when I first I became a solo artist by accident I was in a band and then the band split up so I automatically was under my own name and when I first had a bit of success and I would go out and hear people saying my name or talking about my album as a sort of third person it made me feel really weird yeah but at the same time I'm never well I don't know I can't imagine the situation where I would be losing ownership of my name or sharing it so people might listen to my music but it's still an extension of me but if people refer to like if I say oh I'm gonna wear tonight my Nadeem Murabi you know what I mean?

47:48Or when businesses, I don't know if they decide to sell part of the business, is that something, did you ever think about what it would feel like to share your name in that way? I think it goes back to the beginning where when I started this company, I didn't have this great business plan. So, and this is the truth about the name, I spent about two months thinking what to call it and I couldn't think of anything that I was really really happy with so then I just thought I'm just going to call it my name and does it grow in terms of your own confidence like unwittingly does it give you something that you're expecting I separate it actually I don't especially if I'm speaking about the brand I often just say Morabi without realizing that I don't often ever say Nadim Morabi because I'm like that's just just sounds a bit weird um so I'll often um refer to as just Morabi.

48:42But yeah, I do see a separation because again, even say that preconception of what people think I'm actually like to what I am like, I'm not kind of this typical designer who you would probably stereotype and even this typical entrepreneur that's had all this experience and stuff. So I do feel like I separate both of them and I think I do it quite well. I think I used to be very kind of heavy on social media and the rest of it. And then I met my husband 10 years ago and the moment I met him, I was just like, I don't even feel the need to post to anyone anymore. I'm just like, I feel so kind of happy within myself.

49:31I don't need other people to see it. So, yeah, I don't know. I just try not to think about it to be honest. No but I love that. I think it makes total sense and I also I think there's so much to be proud of with saying I'm not a typical entrepreneur or a typical designer. I just think that's so inspiring. I did want to ask you is it true you went back to work with your first when she was only five days old? Yeah. Tell me a little bit more about that Nadine. So to be honest it was COVID so everyone was kind of either working from home or on furlough. and Vivi was born. We were just knocking through the warehouses, and I was like, I was actually in a very, very fortunate position because I'm sure a lot of women would like to be in a space where they could get work done and have a child because a newborn, basically, they just sleep and eat and poo, basically.

50:28And she was a very easy child, I'll be honest with you. I kind of got catfished a bit. I got tricked for the second one. I know the feeling. But yeah, so it was actually a very lovely, wonderful experience where I was in the office. And at that time with Vivi, we had like a little fabric room. So that was her kind of nursery, so to speak. And I think for me, if I was just at home, not doing things, I don't think it would have been a positive on my mental state type thing. um etty was slightly different uh two years later well 18 17 months later because everyone was in the office and honestly she just screamed at me constantly that's all she did scream and so i was bit like oh this is my last one i cannot stay at home with this child screaming at me all all the time so i used to put her in the car drive to work and that drive to work was horrific because the car seat in the car I think she was all scrunched up and she had to have like cranial oh yeah cranial osteoporosis yeah that was it so it wasn't like her fault she was just I think she was very refluxy and things so I'd used to take her in I'd get one of those slings and I'd just wrap you know the fabricy ones I'd wrap around me and I was like she just used to sleep on me in the office I don't know why but when she was at home she screamed and when she was in the office she was fine and in I had the um you know the sleepyheads oh yeah I had one of those under my desk and I just used to sit her in there lie her in there I got a hanger and like um put some fabric dangling from it and that was a mobile you know hung from the underneath the desk and it was just like you know I was just like a working mum really and I think it was really important for other women to see in the office that you know kids don't fully fully stop your life and like I say I was very fortunate that it was my business and the business needed me in and present so I was fortunate to be able to take my kids into work I'm not sure if everyone would be able to take the kids into work maybe not but then in some ways that makes it really hard as well because you're so hardwired like their cry goes right to the center of your brain and trying to think about things when they're there can be really really tricky and I'm thinking you also had your baby so so close together um I mean what are your memories of those early years when it's because that's quite and even with you know gorgeous bubbers it's still really hard and intense I think it is but I will say that it was in the middle of COVID and not that many people were wearing dresses and going out so I thought right what what can we need we need to just have babies now well I'd already you know got pregnant before COVID hit but when when this kind of COVID was dragging on and I was like let's just get the other one done dusted now and then hope the world opens up after that which um thankfully it did just get the other one just done adjusted honestly though from the second you know you're saying about like how you your memories and stuff if I hear a newborn cry now it's like a trigger for me I'm like oh my god it's like I just freeze up um but yeah I mean I was very fortunate with the first she was good as gold and then bless the second she she you know i think i would have second born's come along with a different energy i think i would have got away too too easily if i hadn't everyone was just like nadine your baby doesn't as in baby she doesn't she doesn't cry she doesn't do anything you know and i was like oh it's just because i'm so you know calm and you know and then the second one i was like what is that you just needed a second one to remind you that the positive affirmations and all that don't don't always transmit i was like there's been a blip there's been a blip somewhere no I think and did you worry at all about your your drive or your creativity because sometimes I think you can feel like you have to put yourself back together or at least there's a sort of new version of yourself after having a baby no not really you know like I say that well they were both in the office with me from day five and I remember Etty was two months and I had a London fashion week show and presentation and the PR company were like I said listen I'm gonna have to bring the baby to London with me and they were like oh right okay and you don't see you know this isn't bad against them but they hadn't had kids at this point and I was like you know I'm gonna have to bring the baby to the event as well oh no you can't you won't be able to bring the baby and I'm like well I think you'll find I need to because I'm breastfeeding and I don't I'm not using kind of formula at all so if the event's like three or four hours I need to bring the baby with me and they're like oh I'm not sure I went well listen if I can't I'm not coming so you kind of need me there um I do think it's lovely how you know as a mum you just kind of bring that child and they just become like your best friend they just go around doing everything with you and I had one of those dooners where you know like the pop-up um pram which turns into a car seat and literally so I'd go on the train and it was like it was like a carry seat and then all of a sudden the wheels came down and I could just you know walk through the streets um with them so genuinely I just walked around with a doona and a sleepyhead for um the first kind of six months of each each child's life yeah I know and there's something when you're kind of I think sometimes when you're in the midst of it you're you're just in the doing and you look back and you think wow that was actually I was actually managing so much at the time but when it's all new and you've got I think there must be some sort of adrenaline and our hormones that kind of pushes you through the sleep deprivation and the you know how it's sort of raw everything can be honestly you don't realize how um I remember when I'd stop breastfeeding and started using formula and I'd start putting the scoops in and I'd be like one two three and I was like okay I won't forget how many I've done And I'm like, wait, was that three scoops or five scoops?

56:25And I'm like, how have I just literally forgotten that in a second? And it is true, they call it baby brain, don't they? Yeah, yeah. And I think it is sleep deprivation. Like, you survive off like four hours a night. I know. Sometimes not even consecutive four hours. So it's a broken sleep. But with your, I was hearing a conversation you had where you said that you would make your evenings about bedtime and your clothes. and that's a time when work wouldn't disturb you and then weekends are for family time. Is that something you've kept going with? Yeah, I do try and stick to that as much as I can basically because my phone never stops with work.

57:03I'm always on call for anyone and everyone and I don't want that to change. However, I do say between kind of six and seven, you can still message me, but I won't be replying. So I didn't want to be like, oh, I'll message you back in a bit or I'll call you back. I was literally like six or seven, I'm sorting the kids, I'm doing bath time, doing bedtime, because I hate being there and not being mentally present. And I've experienced, not myself, but from close friends, my godson passed at the age of five, another friend ended up having a stillbirth. and I'm like, you know, this time is so precious.

57:44You know, I think unless you know someone that's been around someone like that, you probably don't fully, fully appreciate kind of that and I probably wouldn't have done before that happened. I'm so sorry, that's heartbreaking. It is, it is. It's a child, isn't it? But I was like, you know, I do work really hard. I'm not fully there for them 24-7 so when I am there, it's really important for me to be present and by present I mean not typing on my phone because I hate it. I do it. I still do it at the weekends and stuff. I'm not saying I'm never on my phone in front of them. Your phone becomes like a little mini office.

58:20Yeah, and then you see them just wanting to be on the phone and stuff and we do a lot of work comes through WhatsApp and stuff and I'm like, I'm actually working but I know it looks like I'm just messaging my friend rather than kind of watching you do a cartwheel. Watch this, watch this. Mummy, watch this. Watch this, watch this, watch this. Okay, I'm watching. No, no, watch it, watch it. I know. And it's like sometimes you sort of realise you turn into a caricature. I think it was only yesterday I was replying to an email and it was around supper time and the kids were like, Mummy, there's like three of them were asking for me.

58:53And I was like, I'm just trying to reply to this producer. And I'm thinking, I sound like an absolute frat. Like, no one cares. Like, not interesting at all. um when you're when you've had these this pathway that's led to this what sounds like genuine kind of deep-rooted fulfillment and a sense of actually coming completely into yourself it can feel quite different when you raise your kids in a way that is not similar to your own childhood but are there things about their childhood that are similar to yours you think I think I basically I'm so needy with them like I literally shower them with hugs and kisses and everything and I don't really remember that too much as a child and so I think I overcompensate in that way and I'm always like you can't you can't do any harm by showering with more love and affection i actually listened to i was listening to um an audio book once and they'd done some trial it was horrific i don't know how they got away with doing it but basically it i don't even want to say what it is but it got to show that kids from a very early age if they're not you know given love and affection you know it's actually horrific they basically is it the one where they replaced they were born a robotic toy to basically be called mama maybe that's another one no they were basically they withdrew all sort of touch and they would make the mothers go really impassive if they were interacting and it was just I mean we now know that love is literally part of your neurological development it's not just a it's not like an optional extra it's actually part of what makes us into resolved capable humans and I think the more and more like AI is coming into effect now it's so important to have that human interaction and to have that real kind of touch and understanding.

1:00:54So, you know, AI is going nowhere and it's just going to get more and more where people are kind of, you know, using systems and processes and digital kind of technology with everything. Yeah, I know, which is quite, well, actually I was going to say it's quite scary, but actually I get the impression from your, your daughters are going to absolutely know what it is like to be agile. and that's actually what people are now teaching kids anyway. So, you know, if you can really already, you're actually ahead of all that, I think, in terms of trying on different jobs and reacting to things and seeing the good that can come out of even something as simple as collecting the glasses in a bar.

1:01:32You know, you said it actually ended up being something super significant. But isn't that wild? Because I think you can really overlook those moments and it's when you go back and you go, actually, now I can really see the value of what that gave me. Yeah. And I think, you know, I do travel a lot and I do worry about leaving the kids. That is a worry of mine and work does take me traveling quite a lot. But I also think it's really good for them to see mummy working and trying to create something and I hope that that will encourage them and I hope that will give them a good work ethic mindset. I think they're still young, the five and four, and they genuinely think that I go to work to get money to buy them ice creams on holiday.

1:02:19So not to take us on holiday, just to buy the ice creams on holiday. But I love that. I love how like just so beautifully naive and you know, that mentality is. But it's funny, like especially over Christmas time, there'll be, you know, me and my husband will usually have like a date night or something on a Saturday night and my mum will babysit and we'll go out and then my mum will put like strictly on the TV just before they go to bed. and my mum's like oh look there's one of mummy's dresses and my and the kids just think that we're there at this you know like dancing and like you're in dancing and then they'll be like they're so cute that like my mum will send me a video of them both pointing the tv being like there's mummy's dress that's so good you must have it with your kids and you know um yeah or sometimes they'll hear a song that i've done a cover of they'll be like oh this is you and i'm like no i don't actually don't actually sing like a prayer i wish i had um but yeah and i think you know they've they've got hopefully quite a casual um like what would you say like pleasure proudness you know pride in what i do but without it being anything too lauded because i don't well they've grown up with it haven't they i suppose they have and also they're equally you know eye roll and unimpressed you know for parts of it too but i think you're right about in the fullness of time i think seeing your parents driven we're quite transparent about you know the ups and downs of what we do the mechanisms behind it but also the core of it the absolute love we have for it and I think I think I think that's pretty infectious actually and also the joy of being creative and trying things out and if it doesn't work there'll be something else you can take with from it I think that's I think that's pretty invaluable yeah I think growing up in a creative home is a really nice space and for so many of us you can feel like you're in a space where you're not allowed to just I mean look what value there is in just being your whole yourself unapologetically you yeah it's it shouldn't be such a super strength to discover it or to hold on to it and when kids are little you see them with it innately yeah and then it can sometimes get diminished you know so keeping it amplified is a good thing and home is always a safe space to come home to isn't it yeah that's what you want We have quite a few house parties and stuff with the kids, kids and adults.

1:04:35And everyone's always like, the mums and dads are like, Nadine, I can't believe you're so relaxed in your house and stuff. And I'm like, a house is for a living. I don't want it to be a show home. And if a kid drops ketchup on the white sofa, I'll work it out and I'll clean it. And for me, it's really important that it's more about the time you spend together than having that perfect you know home or um environment which which is naturally real life as well definitely and i want to um well i want to finish up by saying how much i love your clothes i really do they've been part of my touring wardrobe they're like my go-to outfits to make me feel good and i think when you were talking earlier about how you design it made me realize that one thing i really love is that sometimes when you put clothes on you feel like the designer it was sort of thinking of someone else but you just happen to enjoy it too but actually with your clothes I always feel it feels like they are there to help me and support me which is not something you get from every every brand I think and also there's thoughtful details and they're fun yeah they are fun I make sure to take them always fun places um yeah well thank you so much and sometimes I've had a nice surprise where I put a dress on I'd be like pockets yeah for your phone or your lipstick or something like that yeah um and hopefully with the time and we haven't catch you from your paddle tonight oh yeah it's important uh but thank you keep doing what you do and i'll keep being here to wear it thank you it's been amazing thank you

1:06:08greetings it's now sunday i talked to you coffee in my left hand little phone in my right under a tree in my garden on a really beautiful morning and they've just finished it now but across, not too far from our house, across the way is a green where they've been doing a little local festival. And on the Sunday, they always do the church service outside and there's a brass band and they do some hymns. And actually, it's very sweet to hear it sort of coming over on the air to our garden. And yeah, we've got our coffee truck at the festival this weekend. So if you ever do make it to Fourleaf, far coffee place in chiswick then nile is working there today and he's there most days actually he's the manager and he's lovely and he makes a very good coffee so um i digress uh this weekend has been actually pretty chilled i haven't been working the whole weekend which has been so lovely so i managed to see a friend on friday and my mum and i also went out to see a play, a friend's daughter's play, which is very good.

1:07:21And then yesterday we spent the day with the kids and ended up with a couple of extra kids for a sleepover. So it's been really social and fun and chilled. And then today we're going out for Sunday lunch because I accidentally got my dates muddled and thought it was Father's Day this weekend and it's not, it's next weekend. And then the restaurant messaged me and were like, I see you've marked that you're coming for Father's Day, but it's not actually Father's Day and I had to pretend and say oh yeah I know that it's because we're all together but actually I got it wrong I don't know why I felt I needed to pretend to the restaurant that I didn't realise I got it wrong but that's what I did but it should be nice proper pub lunch by the river and later on we're going to go and see Masters of the Universe so that's the way my weekend is going and I hope your weekend has been similarly chilled hopefully and you've enjoyed the sunshine and thank you so much to Nadine for such a gorgeous chat sorry I normally don't come off the back of my chats with such a ramble myself but I think it's such a different mood too when I recorded the intro earlier that I thought I had needed to contextualize it but yeah it was glorious talk to Nadine and super inspiring and I know she's not the first guest that's made me feel this way but it is a very special thing when people are so imbued with a sort of can-do attitude that it makes you feel like you can too i mean what a special thing oh i think i just put a little spider on me sorry this isn't how chilled i did there it is oh it's tiny it's one of those tiny ones oh there's one um i lost it it was on my hair uh right sorry little spider i hope you're wherever you are you're right um still at least you could hear my voice i chilled i am about spiders i actually am pretty chilled about spiders i used to hate them when i was a kid and i don't care um yes i'm in the dean i like the idea that she just started making her clothes and pushing it and pushing it but i also think you know as someone who's won entrepreneur of the year awards i think that you can see that she's obviously got a large amount of business and else and the smarts when it comes to that stuff too.

1:09:34So very good combo. And also, happily for us, fabulous dresses. Thank you so much to Nadine for coming to talk to me. Thank you to Claire Jones for producing. Thank you to Richard for editing. He's actually sat at the other side of the garden in our little seated area, editing the main bit of the podcast as I speak. Thank you to Ella May for the gorgeous artwork. Thank you to you for joining me again. We've still got a few weeks of the podcast us left with this series. You guys have been coming up with some really good suggestions recently, so thank you. I'm following a few really interesting leads.

1:10:10And yeah, onwards my loves, onwards. Speak to you soon. Have a lovely week.

1:11:01I'll see you next time.

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