São Paulo – During a business trip to Dubai in September 2020, Jamille Knop (pictured above) decided she wanted to live and work in the city. Back then, the Bahia-born entrepreneur worked as a fashion consultant and fell in love with the region and saw a gap in the regional market. In 2021, she created a distributor of Brazilian fashion brands, and less than two years later she established a Brazilian-style slipper brand. Together, the two businesses generate over USD 200,000 a year.
“All major luxury brands are here but only a small percentage of the population has access to such products. On the other hands, we also have major fast-fashion stores such as Zara, H&M and Bershka. But many women don’t want to consume these chains. So I saw an opportunity to supply a design product with quality and a reasonable price, an affordable luxury,” said Knop.
The 40-year-old holds a degree in Advertising and teamed up with a former colleague from a Fashion Design course, Luciana Pitanga, to create Lassus Design Brands in September 2021. But before establishing in Dubai for good, she carried out a market survey.
“I came back to Dubai in April 2021. My first idea was to sell to retail, so I had some meetings with representatives from malls to look at ready-to-rent spaces and researched prices. But since we had to invest a lot at once, we change our focus to wholesale and reselling to store based here. Five months later we established a showroom in the Dubai Design District, a fashion hub in Dubai,” she recalls.
While Knop resells pieces in the UAE, Pitanga stays in Brazil to negotiate the purchase of brands like Amar de Amarante of dresses, skirts, shorts, and tops; Lança Perfume of blazers, blouses, jeans, shorts, t-shirts, and others; R. do Sol of bikinis, beach cover-ups, swimsuits, and coolest clothes; Maria Dolores of accessories.
The leading clients of the resellers of Lassus Design Brands are Brazilians, Europeans and Arabs. The style of bought pieces change a lot as per the occasion they are used for.
“We develop a miniature collection for the Arab market with flowing, long dresses without low necklines that can be used under abayas. But the pieces are always colorful, with flowers and prints to bring the Brazilianness. And we also have a very large public that seeks shorter clothes for using at night, with sparkles and low necklines.”
Besides the buyers in Dubai, most of whom are Europeans, the Bahia-born also sells to clients in Lebanon, Qatar, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. In the near future, she plans on taking Brazilian brands to Germany, Italy and France.
As the sales of Lassus Design Brands are at their strongest only in Spring-Summer and High Summer seasons – serving up to 20 buyers – Knop decided to invest her free time into creating another business, Brez.
Slipper brand in Dubai
Brez. is a Brazilian-style slipper brand created in May 2023. Alongside her partner Shiraz Lakhi, the fashion designer has stricken deals with over 30 stores and will start selling to other countries like Egypt, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia via Amazon’s website.
Despite bearing an irreverent, bold, innovative and colorful Brazilian DNA, the products are not made on Brazilian soil due to the high cost of transportation to the UAE.
“Everyone knows that Havaianas are a Brazilian product, and they end up being the quality standard for other slipper brands from Brazil like us. Thus, our greatest challenge was finding a supplier in China that had a similar quality, as we can find everything there,” said Knop.
Report by Rebecca Vettore, especially for ANBA
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
