Why being told 'no' didn't stop designer Lilian Afshar starting her own handbag label

“I needed to create an initiative where our customers, as a collective, could get together and make a change,” says bag designer Lilian Afshar. She is talking about her recently released Sierra bag, created to help raise money for medical organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres.

The purple Sierra bag is being sold on www.lafshar.com for Dh3,674, with proceeds being donated to the charity's Covid-19 Crisis Fund.

I was hit back with a whole lot of 'no' or 'that isn't possible', but I kept going until we first got it right

When discovering the campaign, which is registered with the UAE's Islamic Affairs & Charitable Activities Department, the designer decided the very best approach was to ask her customers which charity they wished to support. “So I reached out to everyone on our Instagram asking them to recommend all of the great organisations we are able to work with. That's what this initiative also symbolises: unity and solidarity,” she explains.

Since launching her brand in 2013 in Dubai, Afshar has made a name for herself with her hard-framed evening bags, often intricately patterned or pieced and, although small in proportions, loaded with attitude and sass. Manufactured in repeating, geometric patterns, or in luxe materials with large-scale acrylic chains, her pieces are regularly carried by famous brands Beyonce, Bella Hadid, Kendall Jenner, Celine Dion and also Queen Rania of Jordan.

Afshar comes with an eye for tidy, structural shapes that she calls “a variety of architecture and art”, often using difficult or unusual materials. She's famously created bags like the Bianca, created from diamonds of bevel-edged mirror, or the Eugene in white marble, and the Eva in clear acrylic that appears like crushed ice.

“The obstacle I faced was initially, trying to find ways to use materials that had never been found in handbags. I was hit back with a whole lot of 'no' or 'that isn't possible', but I kept going until we got it right,” she says. This is a procedure for exploration without end, she adds.

“We spend a lot of time in research and development. Among my favourite things you can do is to sit with my production team and bounce back ideas and develop new techniques.”

One of the latest techniques involves lucite, a kind of acrylic that had its heyday in the 1920s and 1930s, when it had been largely used to make jewellery. By choosing to come back to it, Afshar continues to acknowledge the distinctive glamour of the Art Deco era that infuses her collections.

Brought bang updated, these themes now play out as tiny box bags with lucite chain handles, or with lucite cast into transparent handled bags, either left clear as ice, or dyed into candy-coloured tones, making each one a precious, gleaming gem.

“I usually loved mixing two polar opposites and observing the results,” she says.

A British-born Iranian, Afshar has lived in a number of countries, like the UK, Canada and Spain, however now calls Dubai home, where all her bags are made by hand. She draws on skills learnt their studies at Esmod, the Dubai branch of France’s Ecole Superieure des Arts et Techniques de la Mode.

“I studied fashion design, but always had somewhat more interest in accessories and design objects, and I came across it fascinating to think about a design or idea and view it translate into a real piece,” she says.

“Interest is what motivates me to create," she says of her design ethos.

"The passion for creating came first, it just so happened that I turned it into a genuine brand and business. I’m considering all areas of design beyond the realm of fashion. For me personally, fashion can be an industry I’ve always wished to participate and I knew I'd begin in, but as a creative.”

Now stocked in 17 countries - such as the UAE, China, London and Canada - the stockist list on her behalf bags reads like an industry who’s who. This consists of Selfridges, Moda Operandi, ShopBop, Holt Renfrew, amongst others.