Passion for Fashion

Meet Deborah Sawaf, Founder of Thale Blanc and passionate Philanthropist.

Cap d’Antibes resident and Founder of the Thale Blanc brand Deborah Sawaf has had a passion for fashion all of her life. Her successful business, launched just a few years ago, now facilitates her other passion which is helping others and teaching people the pleasure of giving. This is something she has taught her own children from a very young age. It is also something she has tried to incorporate into her brand.

I was introduced to Deborah through Radmila, a local Artist and Cap d’Antibes Jam Maker, who also features in the ILCD blog.

Deborah very kindly invited me to her house for the ILCD interview and photo shoot. I was lucky enough to arrive just as the family were sitting down to breakfast so I got to enjoy a delicious spread before we started the inerview. Breakfast included  fresh fruits, Croissants, and savoury Lebanese specialities. These consisted of Manushe served with Labhne, tomatoes, cucumber  and delicious olives.  

After breakfast we took a seat on the terrace to talk about her business, her passions and why she loves Cap d’Antibes.

I started by asking her to tell me a little bit about herself.

I was born in India. My mum is English, the youngest of 6 born in India, and my father was from India. Growing up I lived in Bombay and then in the mid 80’s I moved to the Middle East.

Growing up I always wanted to work in Fashion. When I was 12 or 13 I wanted to sew, I just knew it was what I wanted to do.

We had one of the best bridal makers in town who made the most amazing bridal gowns. I really wanted to learn from her so, when I was 14 years old, I asked if I could be her intern. Thankfully she said yes so I went to work with her during my summer vacation. I would wake up at 5.30 in the morning to go and watch her cut patterns. I learned so much from watching her work back then. Actually pattern making turned out to be my forte and a priceless skill to have.

Did you go on to study fashion later?

I would have loved to go on to study fashion after finishing school but my parents, of course, wanted me to do either accounting or something in medicine.

Therfore, after finishing school, I went on to study psychology. At the same time as studying I was finding any time I could to learn more about my real passion.

One day my cousin said to me “Deb. You love fashion. You need to come and see what they are doing at my husbands’ place. They are working with this amazing Italian designer”. I knew that they did beautiful hand embroidery work there so I went along one day. That day they happened to be doing the Couture line for Versace. Until then I hadn’t realised the extent of  work that they were doing there.

After that first visit I was completely hooked.

How often would you go there?

Actually I would sneak out of college every day and go and spend some time at my cousins’ husbands’ workshop. I couldn’t wait to get there. After a while I learned so much and I got better and better at what I was doing. There were so many things I learned just from being at that factory and watching them work.  My parents, ofcourse, had no idea that I was spending time there. I used to go for a couple of hours or so each day. I didn’t tell them as I knew they would have preferred me to use that time concentrating on my studies.

At around 19 or 20 I started to produce my own fashion line. It was very amateurish, but I did it just for the love of the art really. I was designing the line and then I would have the embroidery done at the factory.

You seemed to be quite immersed in fashion and also from what you say quite good at it. Why do you think your parents were so against you following this path?

Fashion wasn’t really big in India until maybe 20 years ago. It wasn’t that my parents didn’t support me but Fashion just wasn’t a career choice back then. It wasn’t something a woman would study or pursue as a job. My father was actually very forward thinking for the time. He thought women needed to have a good education and also a career but fashion for him wasn’t a career. It was a hobby. To be honest I don’t even think there was a fashion school in India back then.

Where did that early love of Fashion come from?

My grandmother (on my mothers side) was an artist, she sewed the most beautiful little handbags with beautiful hand embroidery. They really captured my imagination as I child. My mum was also a very proficient seamstress. She always used to make us such beautiful clothes. People tell me that when I was growing up I never wore the same dress twice to Sunday Mass. Every weekend I would be in a new dress which my mother had made. Apparently I was always the best dressed kid there. I guess this is where my passion for fashion started.

What did you do after you completed your Psychology masters, did you continue on this path?

No I didn’t, not as a job anyway.

Actualy In the mid 80’s I moved to the Middle East. We had some extended family there so the first time I went it was just for a visit. It turned out that I absolutely loved it, so much so that I decided to look for work there but something in the fashion industry. I got myself a job and then I produced my own couture line for a few years.

How did you end up in LA?

I moved to the States with my husband in 1997. I had met my husband in Dubai but he was living in the States so that’s why I moved. When I got there I wanted to continue working in fashion but I found it really hard to do Couture in the US at that time. It wasn’t really the thing there. Department stores didn’t have many couture lines so it was a bit of a struggle. Although I had done Couture lines previously in Dubai it didn’t really mean anything to the US market. Couture from the Middle East or Asia wasn’t a big deal until early 2000 when Ellie Saab , paved the way for designers from the East.

So, I decided to go and study fashion in LA. I enrolled at FIDM. I wanted to learn about what the American market needed and I wanted and to see if I could fit into that market. However I quickly discovered that LA was a world of denim and swimsuits and t-shirts and that I didn’t fit into that market at all. It was just too much of a contrast so I finished my 2 years at FIDIM and then went on to GIA to study Gemology.

Why Gemology?

I wanted to love what I was doing and knew that wouldn’t be the case with the US fashion trends at that time. I knew that I wouldn’t enjoy producing the kind of clothes people wanted in the States so I figured that I would have to find something else which I would be comfortable doing.

Fortunately I was in the very privaleged position of not having to work to put food on the table. I was actually working because I had a passion for the industry so this gave me the luxury of trying other things within fashion. I also wanted to take my education up a notch so I thought what else can I do which is fashion related and I came up with jewellery. So I decided to study some more while I had my kids and Gemology and jewellery design seemed like something I could relate to.

Tell me how the Thale Blanc brand came about?

Eventually when my  third son went into school I decided that I wanted to go back to work. I figured I wanted to do something I hadn’t done before. The following summer we were in Forte dei Marmi in Italy. We were staying in Audrey Hepburns’ home with her son Sean and his family . Seans’ family and ours developed a friendship and we were invited to stay with them.

After a couple of days there I said to my husband “I think I want to design a bag. I want to create a handbag that Audrey Hepburn would want to wear today”.

Why Audrey Hepburn?

I was always a big fan of hers. She was my idol in fact. Staying in her home had really inspired me so soon after I designed my first bag which I called ‘The Audrey’. ‘The Audrey’ bag is very unique to the brand. It has a curved handle and a scalloped flap which is what defines it. We also have a bag called ‘The Tiffany’ which  is also very pretty. That one has a Plexi Glass handle in kind of the same shape.

How long did it take you to come up with ‘The Audrey’?

It took me about 2 years to come up with the final design and to make it perfect. It was a very interesting experience for me. There were a lot of technical elements involved in the design which we had to get right before taking it to market.  A lot of people don’t know  the story of this bag so they just look at it as a bag. When they know the story behind it what it signifies and who it is identified with I think it makes it more special. The thinking behind the Audrey Bag was to design something she would wear today. Something young but also something very elegant. In fact at the moment I think we are maybe a little too feminine and elegant so I am working at being a little edgier and cooler for my new collection.

Tell me a little about your philanthropic work. 

When I was younger I had worked with UNICEF on various projects and participated and organised several fund raising events for them and for our church. My mother also used to work with the orphanage attached to our church so it is something I have always been involved with to some degree even if it was just doing little things.

My dad had a saying “It takes every drop to fill the oceans. If you are going to make a difference don’t worry about it being big. It’s the little things which make a difference”.

I also remember one time in India when my dad and I were driving though the city. I was maybe in my twenties. We stopped at a traffic light. There are all these little beggar children who come to the cars when you stop and a child came up to my window. I gave him a 100 ruppee note, which is a lot of money. Normally people give them a rupee or 2 rupees.

I remember feeling good giving him that 100 rupees. When my dad saw this he asked “Why did you do that” and I said “Well it’s a 100 rupees Dad. He can eat for a whole week or the whole month for that matter” and my dad said “Are you going to miss the 100 rupees”? I said “No”. He replied “Then don’t bother giving it. If you are going to give away something and feel good about it make sure it’s something you will miss”.

Things like that have stayed with me to this day, so while I was bringing up my children, having taken a break from work, I decided that I wanted to go back into philanthropy and fundraising.

When I moved to the states I realised more than ever the importance of what my dad had said to me that morning in Bombay. I was born in third world country but I lived a really good life. I made really good money at a really young age and now I wanted  to find a way to give something back. However I didn’t want it to stop just with me,  I wanted it to go down generations meaning my kids.

So I figured if I started something now with my kids, while they were young. Then they would continue their lives with the same principles.  For years I thought how am I going to have my kids make a difference and feel good about it. You know every child wants wants wants. We live in a very materialistic world, especially in LA. In LA  it’s all about what they have and want.

So, I decided to start an experiment with my own children. I wanted to explore how I could teach them the pleasure of giving rather than getting.. The project I came up with was for them to have to give something up for the benefit of someone else. But it’s not just about giving something up it’s about changing our idea of what gives us pleasure. It’s about teaching people, especially kids, that giving rather than receiving can make us equally, if not more happy.

I wanted them to give something up which was very important to them and which they would miss. However I wanted what they were replacing it with to give them equally, if not more, pleasure. I didn’t want them to feel resentful or sad about what they weren’t getting but instead to feel happy and proud of what they were giving.

Can you tell me a bit about this project and how it works?

Basically, after discussing it with them my children suggested giving up their birthday presents and instead using the money to donate to a cause that they cared about. But they didn’t just put a cheque in the post to a charity. They had to use that money to organise a fudraidsing event which they would be in complete control of. The idea was for them and their friends to be fully in charge from start to finish. They had to come up with the idea, put it into practice and finally work hard to make a success of it.  It was amazing to watch how involved they got and the pleasure they got from the whole process. At the end they would send the money they had raised to their chosen organisation.

The first few events my son did were for Pediatric Cancer research.  For the first event my son and the other kids were selling crepes at the farmers market for 5 dollars each. They would run around the farmers market asking people to buy one of the crepes. They would stay for hours on the street doing this. He organised events similar to this couple of times and then the third year he raised 9000.00 dollars for the same organisation. It was amazing! However it wasn’t so much the total money he raised which he got the most pleasure from. It was the whole process and the reward of all of their work benefiting someone else. Basically it was fun for him and his friends but at the same time they were making a difference.

What other events have they organised?

One year my daughter, in place of having a birthday party organised a bracelet making workshop. The money which we would have spent on the party  we used to set up the workshop and buy the materials. On the first day we had a bunch of kids in to make the bracelets.

We taught them how to use the tools, to make the jewellery and about  how to price and tag things because the  next step was going to be to sell the bracelets. Then we invited bloggers to come in to talk to the kids about being a blogger and also about cyber bullying and safety on the internet. There were other speakers too who spoke about other subjects. We found something to interest all of the 35 kids involved basically.

The following weekend we took a space for the Thale Blanc. We then gave the kids had an area where they could sell their bracelets. The kids even walked half a mile up and down the road approaching people in the street and also in restaurants and shops to sell their bracelets. They raised 3,600 dollars that day which is a lot of money for 3 hrs worth of selling.

After that I  figured that I wanted to develop a regular programme like this where I was able to get kids 100 percent involved and my kids would be the sponsors of it. So that’s what we do now using the Thale Blanc brand as a platform. We call it ‘Flutter of Hope‘.

Which gives you most pleasure the Handbag business or your Philanthropic projects?

Definitely  the philanthropy.  The brand, it gives me a voice I think. Doing what I do gives me the platform to do all the philanthropic things which I feel passionately about. I am very lucky that I have actually been able to combine the two passions in one place, fashion and fundraising. An important part of the Thale Blanc brand is about giving back so we have our ‘Flutter of Hope’ campaign which you can read about on our website. We also recently launched The Happy project which I am very proud of.

The purpose of The Happy Project is to remind people that they have a reason to be happy; that reason is not a what or a where, but a who.

Giving someone the gift of happiness is one of the most empowering and magical things you can do for someone. This is what the Happy Project is all about.

So it’s more than just about selling bags?

My bags are of course a business but yes, it’s so much more than that for me. The way I look at it is like this, I don’t need anything and I don’t need to work. I work very very hard but what I do employs a lot of people so I think that’s why I keep doing it. Do I need to work? No I don’t. I have a very comfortable life but I do need to show my kids that even though you are well settled and have a good education and good job you still have to work hard. I think that’s really important and when they see me working hard they realise that they have to also.

You know kids learn a lot from their parents and from watching what you do. I want them to think that nothing in life comes easy. I think this will make them better people and I hope it will also keep them grounded.

Apart from the fundraising how do you keep them grounded?

My husband and  I have always tried to expose our children to real life situations. Living in the West, especially here in Cap d’Antibes, you are never going to  see real poverty and third world conditions. I want them to learn that there is another world out there. A world where a child has never had its own toy, Ever! Or hasn’t had a freshly cooked meal, Ever! So I like my children to see that and to do hand on things so that they can fully appreciate what they have and also be better people.

Aged 11 my daughter went to Calcutta for 2 weeks of her school vacation. She worked there with 13 orphaned children. She worked from 5.30 in the morning  until 5pm every day. Then she also volunteered at Mother Theresas’ tomb until about 6pm. It was really really hard work for her. She was only 11 and she had to make 20 beds every day. Then she had to feed them and teach a class of toddlers. I think it was a valuable experience for her to have, it taught her the value of compassion and giving back.

How do you parents feel now about you having pursued your fashion career rather than the Psychology?

They are ok now. It took my father a long time but he came round eventually. Unfortunately my dad never got to see the success of Thale Blanc. He passed away in 2009 but I am sure I would have had his blessing. It’s funny as my dad worked for Pfizer’s, the Pharmaceutical company, but he was actually an artist. He drew beautifully but he never pursued it as a career. For him it was just a hobby not something he could do as a job.

How long have you been a Cap d’Antibes resident and what brought you here?

My husbands family has been coming here for over 40 years. He is Lebanese and has a very big family. We have about 150 close family members who come here every summer so it is the family which brought us to the Cap. Everyone has their own home in the area. We don’t all stay in the same house but we spend lots of time together. I love my kids to spend time with their cousins. It’s such a big family and they all live in different parts of the world so the summer is when we are all in one place and can be together.

The family love being here and have always loved being together. At one time you know the Lebanon wasn’t a good place to be. There was the war going on so everyone in his family moved away to various places around the world. Cap d’Antibes is  somewhere they all came together on vacation so it has become a family tradition to spend the summer here in Cap d’Antibes.

What was your first impression of Cap d’Antibes?

Before we got married,  my husband brought me to Cannes but I had never been to Cap d’Antibes. The  first time I came I thought it was incredibly beautiful. I understood instantly why the family wanted to spend their time here. I love the family tradition of getting together every year and to be honest you couldn’t find a better place in which to do that.

What do you love about the Cap?

You know Cannes is beautiful and also Monte Carlo but I think there is something special about Cap d’Antibes. I love where we are right now. We have the beach in front of us and then we have the beach on the other side of us. It’s really convenient. I also like it here because my kids can be in St Tropez one day, Monaco the next or Cap Ferrat. You don’t get that anywhere else, every place they go to here is so different in character and ambience. Cap d’Antibes is also centrally located which works well for us. We also have amazing food, great restaurants and lovely people. It’s a very quiet place as well which is nice. It’s just a beautiful area to spend time in.

I think what I love most about coming here though are the family traditions. Many of the restaurants we go to now are the same places my husbands’ parents went to when they first began coming to the Cap. Places that my husband went to as a kid my kids go to now. They can even go alone and I know they will be perfectly safe with people who have known the family for years. You really build a bond with the people you see each summer. It’s like coming home, it truly is our home away from home.

Your Favourite places here?

I have several. My kids grew up at the Belles Rives in the sense that it was  the place they would go to everyday. It was the safest place for them to go to the beach. It’s probably the only beach I know where you can walk out 100 or 200 metres and it’s still shallow. That was my safe haven with the kids growing up and we spent many many summers there. The kids used to waterski there with Marco, in fact my husband learnt to ski with Marco when he was a kid too.

The Hotel du Cap is also somewhere I love to go, it’s so spectacular and also Plage Keller, the food is incredible there.

Eilen Roc is another place I love. They have such a beautiful rose garden and I always visit in May when they are in full bloom.

In the mornings I often go to food Market which I adore.

Do you go back to India?

I don’t go back very often no. If I do go back it’s more social rather than for work. I travel a lot with my work, every eight weeks in fact, so I just don’t have the energy to travel to India that often. My mother now lives with me too so I only have extended family who live in India now.

Where would you call home.

I believe that home is where the heart is and for me that’s mostly here in Cap d’Antibes. This is where I get to spend the time with all of the family. Having said that I have also built a very very close family in LA so that’s home for me too. But my heart is here and I love being here.

Do I  feel  Indian? Do I feel half British? Or do I feel Lebanese?

I think feel closest to the Arab culture,  I’ve spent most of my life around beautiful , warm, loving people. I am probably a woman of the world more that anything in particular. LA is the place where I have now lived for the most time so I think I will always be based there. I would have loved to live in Italy but I don’t think that is going to happen now. It’s just too easy in LA especially work wise. So LA and the Cap are the places I call home.

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