Christina Karachaliou, the managing director of O' My Glamour!, helps women who feel they have nothing to wear. Lee Hoagland / The National
Christina Karachaliou, the managing director of O' My Glamour!, helps women who feel they have nothing to wear. Lee Hoagland / The National

'My mission is making women feel pretty'



Christina Karachaliou arrived in Dubai with her husband in 2007. A mental health professional in the United Kingdom, she switched to working in administration. Always having had a love for fashion, she decided to take professional courses with a view to starting a personal styling business. She launched O' My Glamour! in January.

7am

I could not leave without my pastry in the morning. So I have breakfast, shower, do my make-up ritual. I make sure I represent who I am and O' My Glamour! when I meet my clients.

9am

I usually start around 9 o'clock. I check my emails and everything that is pending from the day before. I am a one-person company, so everything runs through me. If a client has emailed me and I need to arrange an appointment, that's the first thing I do. I also do some research regarding the latest fashion trends. If I have an appointment later on in the day, then I prepare for that. I create a shopping itinerary: I find outfits then take my clients to visit and try them.

10am

If I have a client early who has to go pick up her kids from school, I would meet her maybe at 10 o'clock when the stores open. I live 10 minutes from The Dubai Mall so I walk there. The majority [of my clients] are expat women; I have some GCC clients - but they are probably 10 per cent of my client base. A lot of the women want to create a full wardrobe [so] it would be mix and match high-street brands with designer brands. Part of the job I love is helping the everyday woman who feels that she has nothing to wear. More recently, one of my bigger projects was doing the styling on a three-day photo shoot for L'Oréal's annual bride magazine. I love doing the shoots and working for clients who have money ... but the everyday woman who needs most of the help, who looks after her? This is my passion. My mission is making women feel pretty and ... you don't have to spend a fortune. A lot of women are executives - they have the money, but not the time. They finish at 7pm or 8pm and need me to take them shopping until 12 o'clock at night. I am committed to my clients and don't see this as a nine to five [job]. After we finish with the wardrobe assessment or the shopping session, I put together a styling profile based on their colours and their styles.

8pm

This is when my husband gets home. We always try to make time for each other. If I know I'll be out with a client, then we'll make our own arrangements. The day I will not work is Friday; this is for me and my husband, for my personal life.

1am

It really doesn't matter what time I get up. I really can't get to bed before 12, 1 o'clock in the morning.

Director: Laxman Utekar

Cast: Vicky Kaushal, Akshaye Khanna, Diana Penty, Vineet Kumar Singh, Rashmika Mandanna

Rating: 1/5

If you go

The flights

There are direct flights from Dubai to Sofia with FlyDubai (www.flydubai.com) and Wizz Air (www.wizzair.com), from Dh1,164 and Dh822 return including taxes, respectively.

The trip

Plovdiv is 150km from Sofia, with an hourly bus service taking around 2 hours and costing $16 (Dh58). The Rhodopes can be reached from Sofia in between 2-4hours.

The trip was organised by Bulguides (www.bulguides.com), which organises guided trips throughout Bulgaria. Guiding, accommodation, food and transfers from Plovdiv to the mountains and back costs around 170 USD for a four-day, three-night trip.

 

The specs

AT4 Ultimate, as tested

Engine: 6.2-litre V8

Power: 420hp

Torque: 623Nm

Transmission: 10-speed automatic

Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)

On sale: Now

Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

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