Profession / role:

Managing Director

Company / organisation:

Fair Play Products LTD

Website (if you have one):

fairplayproducts.com

My primary role in relation to fashion is:

Designer, Supplier, Manufacturer

I am looking to discover or buy

Wants Buyers of 100% Organic Cotton, Fair Trade certified sleepwear for women and children. Buyers for Lingerie/Garments of branded excess production, remains. International Contacts, Business Opportunities, Meeting new people, making new friends Edit

About me / About business or organisation:

WINNER OF THE DESIGNER OF THE YEAR 2002 WHICH WAS HELD IN A GALA CEREMONY AT THE WORLD TRADE CENTRE IN DUBAI., UNITED ARAB EMIRATES..HERE IS A NEWSPAPER ARTICLE ABOUT ME.....

A STAR DESIGNER IN THE MAKING.......

Admit it, we all love clothes. But for Fazreena Tasneem Ismail, clothing is a passion that has taken her to great heights.

Business was always in her bones. "My entire family was involved in some sort of business or the other. So it was always an option."


She soon decided that the time had come for her to open up her own store. It was mainly garments that she was interested in but fate had other ideas. "I went to this large mall in Dubai and was allotted a reasonable amount of shop space. But there was a catch. The only item of clothing I was permitted to sell was lingerie as that was the only thing that the mall lacked. It was a great place to start in, so I had no option but to agree to the clause."

She began by importing items of clothing from Sri Lanka and selling it in Dubai. She soon found that there was a growing demand for nightclothes. "Cotton nightgowns were a great favourite. We were the only store that stocked them. Soon I began to create individually designed cotton nightgowns like Dubai had never seen before. It was under my own label of Desert Dreams."


Fazreena herself supplied the designs for the nighgowns. The fact that they were individually crafted was what caught most people's attention.


As with any business, changes had to come about. "I found that though I could design the patterns for the nightgowns, I was unable to communicate the technical details to the factory in Sri Lanka. That was when I enrolled at the London College of Arts where I trained for the one year Diploma in Fashion Designing."


Eight months into the course and her teachers presented another idea. Why not participate in the annual show held in Dubai for young designers? Around 30 of us applied from the school and 16 were chosen. There were five schools that participated. After I was chosen, I knew that I had to give it my best shot."

The participants were asked to design around the theme of the 'Four Elements' and the design could either be related to Earth, Wind, Fire, Water or a combination of all four. "Fire to me could not portray anything softly, Wind and Earth too did not hold much fascination but as a lover of nature, Water seemed to be the ideal theme."

Her creation for the evening, which was held on May 1, 2002 at the World Trade Center in Dubai, caught the judges' eyes and she carried off both the awards that were to be presented. The Design of the Year award and the Best Use of Fabric award, the first Sri Lankan to ever do so and also the very first in Dubai to win both awards. The judges for the evening included a host of fashion professionals.

Made of shades of blue, the dress which was designed for Evening Wear is stunning. "It's haute couture," she says, "a lot of work went into it." Each participant had to design and sew her creation by herself. "We could enlist the help of a fashion house but the majority of the work was done by ourselves."

After she completed the diploma, Fazreena decided to go one step further. "I was already immersed in a business and I couldn't study full time. But I wanted another qualification and more experience. And where else could I obtain it but at a school in Milan, one of the fashion capitals of the world."

The Moda Burgo, where she studied was situated between the great fashion moguls of the world - Giorgo Armani and Versace. "It was only when I was in Milan that I understood this concept of fashion thoroughly. There you would bump into designers and models on a daily basis. It's a completely different world."

And that world has now crept in on her. While she has no retail outlet directly under her wing, she is a supplier of cotton nightgowns to nearly all the countries in the Gulf region. But what of her training as a fashion designer


As that is the identical way in which her designs are put on paper, it should be worth looking out for this young designer.

Career history / Company history:

May 2009 - present

(5 months) Managing Director (Owner, Senior Executive (CEO, CFO, President))

Fair Play Products Ltd, http://www.fairplayproducts.com

Industry: Retail
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Dec 1999 - Jul 2004

(4 years, 8 months) Designer/Owner (Owner, Executive (VP, SVP, etc.))

Millenium Next General Trading

Industry: Retail, Garments