In the balance between preservation and progress lies a truth: authentic cultural expression emerges through thoughtful evolution that honours tradition whilst embracing possibility. Farida Abdulla Kamber Al Awadhi, founder of the UAE’s first female-owned design firm Cinmar Design and President of the Emirates Business Women Council, transformed her 1989 venture into a platform for reshaping Gulf aesthetics. When I close my eyes and think of Dubai as it was in my childhood, I see sand — endless, golden expanses stretching towards a horizon where sky and earth merged in shimmering heat.
This was not the gleaming metropolis visitors encounter today, but a modest trading port where pearl divers still spoke of their grandfathers’ adventures. As a young teenager in the 1980s, I found myself constantly asking during our family travels, why didn’t Dubai possess the same beautiful spaces I encountered abroad? Sheikh Zayed Road was surrounded by desert then, with tents dotting the landscape, and the World Trade Centre standing as the tallest building.
The UAE University offered no interior design courses, so I travelled to the United States for my education. Living between two cultures allowed me to select the best from both worlds. In August 1989, I received my trade licence to establish Cinmar Design.
People were surprised: they told me, but we have shops doing interiors. I responded that interior design encompassed much more. Starting small, I designed one shop, then another.
Gradually I progressed to banks, spas, hospitals, corporate offices, and hotels. One project particularly close to my heart was the Dubai Ladies Club — the first private club exclusively for women in the 1990s. The Citibank private banking facility marked a watershed moment.
As the first such exclusive VIP space in the UAE, when newspapers featured the completed project, everyone assumed the design originated from their US headquarters. Nobody imagined it was created locally and certainly not by a woman. We won the tender for an auditorium accommodating over 2,400 people — the largest in Qatar.
The Sheikh insisted: we are proud to have Emirati women designing our biggest auditorium. Women are the central pillar like the pole of a tent that holds everything together.