Fallen Palm bench with goat hair detail, magazine rack and drawers on both ends. Sarah Dea / The National
Fallen Palm bench with goat hair detail, magazine rack and drawers on both ends. Sarah Dea / The National

Khalid Shafar sets the bar for contemporary Emirati design



Khalid Shafar vividly remembers the Indian merchants that used to pass through his neighbourhood when he was a young boy. Carrying oversized sacks filled with fabrics, toys and any number of other treasures, the merchants would roam around Dubai, announcing their arrival with cries of 'lelam, lelam', the Malayalam word for auction. On hearing these cries, housewives would rush to their doors to see what new treats were on offer.

"I used to hear them and I used to see my mum and my neighbours sitting with them," Shafar, who is now 32, recalls. "You don't see them anymore but the story is still well known. Any local person will remember."

Years later, this simple childhood memory became the inspiration for Shafar's Auction coffee table, one of five pieces that make up the Emirati designer's latest collection. The table consists of a large, sack-shaped fabric base, a homage to the holdalls carried by those memorable merchants, topped with a simple slab of Travertine marble. The beauty of the design lies in the fact that the sack can be untied and has a hollow interior that acts a secret storage area.

Auction is a perfect example of Shafar's attempts to create a new brand of "contemporary Emirati design". His aim is to take local stories, elements and materials and create designs that are modern and unique, rather than "ethnic" or overly "oriental".

"My pieces are not traditional, classical, Emirati heritage ones. They still have those original stories but they fit in any interior space. They don't only fit in the Emirati house; they fit in any house, in any culture. I want them to appeal to everyone. If I see that a piece will fit anywhere, for me it's a success," he says.

For Shafar, it's all about telling stories. Hence The Trap, one of the other standout pieces from the 2013 collection, which is inspired by the contraptions used by local fishermen. A sliding bookshelf is housed within a dome-shaped "trap" made of interwoven wire mesh and can only be accessed when it is pulled out through an opening in the side of the dome.

Fallen Palm is a bench inspired by the ubiquitous palm tree, with a seat made from goat's hair that has been sourced from a local tannery. In keeping with Shafar's seeming obsession with multi-functionality, the bench features two hidden drawers, and its wooden protrusions can be used to stack magazines. The Lazy Folds daybed and sofa is made using a pure cotton stuffing that was a standard feature in old Emirati homes, and the Flip lounge chair has a back that can be flipped around depending on whether you want to sit normally or in the traditional, cross-legged style. The collection is tied together by the repeated use of ash wood and the colour black.

The pieces were unveiled in late November, to coincide with the opening of KASA, Shafar's new showroom in Dubai's Ras Al Khor district. A little slice of calm in the heart of one of Dubai's oldest industrial estates, KASA, with its stripped back concrete floors and ceilings and minimal decorative features, is cool, no-nonsense and quintessentially Shafar. It's something of an anomaly in a neighbourhood filled with grubby warehouses, dusty roads and tooting lorries, but Shafar has high hopes for his chosen location.

"I have an attachment to the area because my family's construction business is located here so I've been coming here since I was a child. And my workshop is here, so for me it makes sense to produce, design and display in the same place.

"Also, I have a vision for this area. Five years ago, Al Quoz was all factories, labour camps and warehouses; now it is the art district of Dubai. So why couldn't Ras Al Khor become Dubai's new design district? People think it's a bit far away from the city but in fact, it's in the heart. And designers and artists like to be surrounded by that industrial, urban feel. If it will happen or not, I don't know. But if it does happen, it'll be an honour for me to have been one of the first to move here. I'm sure when the first gallery opened in Al Quoz, it was a very courageous thing to do."

While Shafar is eager to imagine a time when Ras Al Khor is a thriving design hub, he accepts that there is still not enough design being produced in the UAE. His standing as one of the first - if not the only - professional, full-time Emirati furniture designers is testament to this.

While there is local talent to be found, a lack of educational opportunities, along with certain cultural issues, are obstacles for local furniture designers, he says.

"We don't have proper product design and industrial design courses. Interior design is very different to product design - you need to look at joints, you need to look at weight, you need to look at dimensions."

There is also a tendency to view work that involves using your hands as an inferior undertaking, says Shafar, and a lack of understanding when it comes to what furniture design actually entails. "When I first started, everyone was calling me a carpenter," Shafar recalls. "There has also been the view, culturally, that decoration and interior design was mainly a female [pursuit]. But I do think the country is becoming more and more open to these things.

"There is also an issue with the infrastructure, in terms of the manufacturing chain, suppliers and factories. It is very challenging for people to prototype a new idea; it is very expensive for an emerging talent. Factories don't give seriousness to this issue because they don't see the commercial value. So people sometimes give up quickly."

Had he embarked on a design career straight out of school, he too may have been put off by such obstacles, Shafar admits. However, although he always had an interest in design - and as a child "preferred drawing lessons to football" - he ended up doing a degree in management and went on to work with large corporations such as Dubai Holding.

He did, however, do a diploma in interior design in his spare time and always planned to set up his own design house. And when the economic crisis hit in 2009 and the company he was working for started restructuring, he realised that it might be the right time to take his leave. He enrolled in a woodworking and furniture course in New Zealand and literally started carving a new career path for himself.

The move has certainly paid dividends. Shafar's first collection was unveiled in November 2011 and generated a lot of interest. Having launched his second collection and the KASA concept at the end of last year, he is now working on a number of new projects for this year's edition of Design Days Dubai, which is taking place from March 18 to 21.

One of these is a collaboration with the French company, Moissonnier, which has given Shafar free rein to redesign one of its most iconic pieces, a traditional commode that Shafar says he has taken to a "new extreme". He is also designing a collection of three rugs for the Hong Kong-based carpet and rug company, Tai Ping and, as with last year, will be creating a new piece for the Beirut-headquartered Carwan Gallery.

He was also selected to take part in the inaugural Design Road Professional, an initiative organised by the Dubai Culture & Arts Authority, in association with Tashkeel and the Creative Dialogue Association (CDA), a private independent and not-for-profit organisation based in Barcelona. With the aim of encouraging intercultural dialogue and creative exchange between local and international designers, the initiative included trips to London and Barcelona, where Shafar attended design festivals and workshops and met with industry stakeholders. He is in the process of designing a piece inspired by the experience which will also be showcased at Design Days Dubai.

As if that weren't enough to keep him busy, he is creating an installation for the new Maraya Art Centre in Sharjah, which is scheduled to be unveiled ahead of the Sharjah Biennial in March, is helping to design a new contemporary, home-grown cafe concept, and has already starting planning his 2014 collection.

Ask him about the future and Shafar has three words: New York and Milan. "I want to be in those cities, somehow. How is not yet clear.

"The challenge is for us to compete with international designers, expose our culture on an international stage and tell them, 'We have something here. It's not just about the glamour of the structure of our buildings - it's also about what's inside those buildings'."

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.”

Paatal Lok season two

Directors: Avinash Arun, Prosit Roy 

Stars: Jaideep Ahlawat, Ishwak Singh, Lc Sekhose, Merenla Imsong

Rating: 4.5/5

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The Bio

Hometown: Bogota, Colombia
Favourite place to relax in UAE: the desert around Al Mleiha in Sharjah or the eastern mangroves in Abu Dhabi
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Favourite documentary: Chasing Coral by Jeff Orlowski. It's a good reality check about one of the most valued ecosystems for humanity

How to protect yourself when air quality drops

Install an air filter in your home.

Close your windows and turn on the AC.

Shower or bath after being outside.

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Other workplace saving schemes
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  • Lunate, an Abu Dhabi-based investment manager, has launched a fund that will allow UAE private companies to offer employees investment returns on end-of-service benefits.
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Sector: Generative AI
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