Flair Magazine
Lifetime friends turned partners Farah Yasser and Hanna Hazem have always had a passion for fashion. Together they founded “Les Miniatures” and through it transformed the trend of tiny bags and made it into their own fully-fledged brand. Just in time as they release their latest dreamy collection titled “Fleurette” we speak to the founders about their designs and their future plans for their little magnificent masterpieces.
Why did you decide to focus your design on small bags?
We started wearing minis when they became on the hot list and we fell in love! We followed the big designers and adored their mini pieces, we saw how celebrities and bloggers styled it and we wished we could get our hands on them. We noticed that this trend was not very accessible here in the local market, as people were too clingy to the big old bag and we did not find a lot of cool designs to buy locally. So we wanted to step foot in the market and prove how a tiny accessory can make a big difference to a person’s outfit and that bags should not only be worn as a luggage.
There has been a surge of local accessories design in Egypt. What sets your brand apart from them?
We think its amazing that nowadays you can stumble upon many local designers and buy products that could be actually better than what you can buy from abroad. Yet we think that each designer is unique in their own form, and that we all compliment one another without overlapping. As Les Miniatures, we remain true to our brand identity of creating wearable art in the form of bags, and we are proud to be the only local designer focusing solely on mini bags.
Take us through your design process…
Our process starts when we meet up together and start brainstorming, we always have tons of ideas and inspirations in our heads. Also, being a team of two makes us stronger in terms of coming up with new designs, yet its also challenging to reach a compromise from our totally different mindsets. We believe however, that this is what makes our designs stand out and not look consistent. The challenge always lies in turning these scattered ideas into one design that could be transformed into a miniature. Therefore our bags basically speak our mind! After weeks of perfecting the design we move to the next step, which is the production process, as we work with a skilled team of artisans who deeply believe in our concepts.
How would you describe your design aesthetic?
We always focus on portraying our bags as wearable art. We don’t want people walking with our bags without feeling that they’re wearing a statement on their shoulder. We also love that people now recognize our designs, which is what we aimed for from the start.
What are the biggest challenges you face and how do you overcome them?
Our biggest challenge is finding materials to use in Egypt. This problem can lead to delaying the production process or even not being able to execute some of the designs we have planned. Also, quality control is another big challenge. Since we produce locally, we always try to be very strict with our quality control and not overlook any imperfections and we always put a lot of effort to ensure the highest quality.
What can we expect from you in the future?
Through our brand we aim to launch new collections every now and then that are different from the previous ones. We are currently working on very cool collaborations that will be launched soon. We are also planning to expand beyond designing bags, so you’d expect to see more mini designs in the near future.
