The business of Iraqi-American Dubai fashion
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — To say there’s a lot of bling in Huda Beauty’s headquarters would be an understatement. It’s near impossible to walk a few feet without seeing a Himalayan-salt-pink crystal lamp or a rhinestone-encrusted knick-knack (a lipstick, a stiletto, a life-size ice cream cone, you name it).
Then there are the lips. More than anything, it is founder, chief executive and chairwoman Huda Kattan’s affinity for lips that inflects her company’s 22,628-square-foot offices, spread over the 21st and 24th floors of a towering high-rise in the desert city of Dubai. Lips double as signage on bathroom doors and take the form of phones and business cards. There are 1990s, lip-shaped telephones everywhere. Fuchsia, metallic hot pink, red and silver phones — lacquered or bedazzled — are placed on tables, on shelves, at the end of a row of desks. None of them work, but that’s not the point. Kattan is the world’s most famous beauty influencer-turned-entrepreneur and she’s clearly going for a look.
She is perched at the desk in her office, which she uses for everything from product development meetings to dress fittings. It’s her sanctuary, and it’s equipped with a bathroom, powder room and shower. Then there’s the oversized chair covered in disco balls, pink gumball machines, tiaras and Hello Kitty accessories; a couch strewn with an extra-large iridescent Louis Vuitton Speedy bag and PVC Versace totes, and dozens of fluffy, pink makeup brushes, housed in plastic and marble cups, some of them pink with rose-shaped cut-outs. It looks like Barbie’s dream house exploded, with Kattan playing a living version of the famous Mattel doll — that is, if Barbie were Iraqi-American, super rich, hooked on luxury goods and ran a burgeoning beauty empire....
