‘Crystyled’ artworks honour UAE’s leaders

Three royal sheikhs, eight months and more than one million glass beads, crystals and pearls: meet the woman who has been painstakingly "crystyling" the UAE's leaders.

Natalie Daghestani in her Dubai home, with her hand-glued crystal-and-bead portraits of the country’s leaders. Pawan Singh / The National

aNatalie Daghestani is patience personified. Through her company, Crystyled, she hand-glues thousands of Swarovski crystals onto accessories in a process she calls “crystyling”.

The 28-year-old artist has ­crystyled items for residents and visiting lovers of bling, including Blackberry phone covers for Kim and Khloe Kardashian, as well as walking sticks and dog collars.

Daghestani’s latest project is three fully crystallised portraits of Sheikh Zayed, the founding President of the UAE; Sheikh Khalifa, President of the UAE; and Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai. It took her eight months to delicately secure the estimated one million glass-crystal beads, Swarovski crystals and Swarovski pearls.

Dubai has been Daghestani’s adoptive home since she was 2.

“I feel a strong sense of pride to see how far the country has come since my childhood. Everything here is so grand and impressive. I decided to combine my talent with the feeling of wanting to create a tribute to the country for all the opportunities it has provided me.”

Daghestani’s Welsh mother, Gabriele, works with her as part of a branch of the Crystyled business, offering personalised confectionery for parties.

Daghestani credits her mum with helping to nurture her artistic talent.

“My mother encouraged us to create lots of free art with everything and anything,” she says. “From a young age, I was mixing sand, wood, glitter, melted wax crayons, seeds and rice with glue to create decorative collages. I used to stand outside my villa and offer to paint portraits of passing neighbours for a dirham. I’d stick flowers and shells on the drawings, and buy sweets with my profits.”

It was Daghestani’s Jordanian pilot father, however, who triggered her lifelong love of crystals. When he returned from trips, he’d bring back small Swarovski crystal animals. “We had them on our entrance table. When the sun hit them, this rainbow colour spectrum would shine on the walls and ceiling.

“I’ve always associated crystals with magic and beauty. They bring a flat picture to life, sparkling and dancing in the light.”

Natalie created her dazzling leaders’ portraits by first pencilling the outline of their features, then dividing the picture into groups of colour and crystallising the outlines before filling in the rest. “In the beginning my neck ached, but it’s trained now. The process is addictive. When I was doing the features on the faces, the portraits really began to come to life. I’ve spent days looking at them, every time ­noticing a detail I hadn’t seen before.”