Today on our very first episode of Working Lunch, we are talking to Dress Designer, Dressmaker, Seamstress and founder of Abishai, Fatima Bey. I have personally worked with Fatima and she is truly amazing at what she does. Fatima’s primary focus and passion is special occasion and wedding.
I’m SO excited to have her as my first guest on Working Lunch. Sitting in the dressing area of her office, Fatima and I discuss her business and how she got started.
Q: Tell me a little bit about how your business was started.
“I do this because I love it and it gives me an opportunity to meet people that I honestly never would.” Fatima started sewing and general crafting when she was 9, and in teen years, she started making her own clothing by machine. After high school and into adulthood, she became the alterations manager at a local David’s Bridal.
“Basically David’s Bridal was my university. I feel like I have a PhD in sewing and I pretty much earned it there. I had a retail management background before working at David’s but I think all of that prepared me for David’s. You have to have a lot of patience and know how to read people in order to be successful.”
Q: How did you go from David’s Bridal to Abishai? (Pronounced ABBA-shy)
Owning her own business was always a dream in the back of Fatima’s mind. After several years, she left David’s to go back to school full time, and became a school bus driver to generate income while she was in school. She quickly learned that going to school full time, driving a bus and sewing on the side was too much too fast. She ended up leaving school, realizing she needed to do something different.
“I was always afraid to give 100% of myself to the business.” she recalls. It wasn’t until she hit emotional and financial rock bottom that she started giving her own business 100% of her attention. As soon as she started focusing on her business 100%, that’s when the business starting picking up. Fatima began to realize sub-passions within her field such as heirloom wedding gowns. (Anything that is passed down)
There are so many ways to incorporate an heirloom gown into a wedding, even if the bride is wearing a brand new dress. “I like the idea of the mother passing something down that means something but making it practical.” she says. Wedding gowns are already meaningful, but it’s even more meaningful it was your mom’s or your aunt’s or other family member. An heirloom wedding dress can be turned into another wedding gown or even a christening gown. Fatima had a client who where the bride didn’t wear the mother’s gown, but Fatima used the material from the gown and made accessories like ring bearer pillow, garter, veil, and other custom keepsakes. “I like being different. I like not being average. I consider average an insult.”
Q: What sets you apart from other designers?
“I house different skills into one person that you don’t always find.” Fatima is professional level seamstress. She points out that just because someone is a a good sewer, it doesn’t mean they are a good designer. Someone may have the skills to design, but they might not be a seamstress.
Another quality of Fatima’s is she is very direct and honest. She will tell you if something doesn’t look good. “You are walking around with my name on you, so you are going to look good. You’re not going to walk around looking ridiculous and saying I made it.”
Her passion and love for women is contagious. “So many of us women don’t realize our value and feel less than because we don’t look like the women in magazines.” She sees people of every economic and cultural backgrounds and adds that many women have low self esteem, across the board. “I absolutely think it’s so important to life up other women as much as we can.”
“I make a point to point out the good things about you without giving you sugar coated crap. You’ve got what you’ve got, but we can frame it nicely. Let’s focus on that. I will make sure your dress looks good on you, not anyone else.”
She hates when women compare themselves to something that’s not them. “You don’t have to be like ‘X, Y & Z’ person, you need to be you. Anybody else you try to be is not going to make you happy because it will be like fitting a square peg in to a round hole.”
Q: What is one question that people should be asking somebody like you?
When Fatima does a fitting, she cannot fit you in a different bra than what you are going to be wearing on the event. If you don’t some prepared with the bra you will be wearing with the dress she’s sewing, she will send you home or send you to the store. “Your bra is everything when it comes to your dress. Where your breasts are sitting, determines the hem shoulder, waist, hips. It actually determines every single part of the dress. It’s not a minor detail, especially if you are well endowed, then it matters even more.” Even though she tells people that, sometimes they don’t come prepared.
Because she also does so many custom made items, she also recommends you bring pictures of what you want you’re talking about. Sometimes what people describe is not what Fatima imagines and she wants to make sure she’s on the same page.
Q: How did you come up with the name Abishai and how you are fighting human trafficking?
Abishai was actually a real person. He was the nephew of the biblical King David; King Solomon’s first cousin. Abishai was Kind David’s chief warrior, which was a big deal. A chief warrior was kind of like being the top general in the United States. He was reliable, he got stuff done and he was loyal. “I like his character because I akin it to my own in many ways. When it comes to human trafficking, I feel like I am a warrior, and I try to be one as much as I can right now.”
More importantly, the name Abishai means source of wealth. “I wanted to give a name that was speaking something over the business. So, every time you say Abishai, you say source of wealth.” Her website is My Abishai so every time someones says it they are saying “my source of wealth”.
The organization Fatima supports is called Kinship United, based out of Illinois. They help the cause of human trafficking and orphans on a worldwide scale. “When I stared my business in 2010, I decided to make it a part of my business model to do what I could to help the cause. I didn’t have the money to go overseas to help them. I didn’t have the skills to physically fight off the traffickers because, trust me, I’d like to. None of that was a reality at the time, but $5, $10 that was reality at the time. I’m going to do what I can from where I am. And that was my mentality. If I set up now that I give a portion of every sale to this organization, then I can always be giving.”
Fatima believes in this organization, because they help the whole person. They are a Christian organization so they help them spiritually. As a faith based woman, this is a top priority for her. They put many children through school. They help with food, shelter, education and job training skills. They help the whole person, not just giving them food and drink and a place to live.
Q: What do you typically do for lunch?
Hesitantly she says with a laugh: “Eat while I check emails!” Like many busy entrepreneurs, Fatima checks messages all at once, and it’s usually while she’s eating because always multi-tasking. But, she adds, “in the summertime I’ll take 30-40 minutes and relax in the sunshine and eat. We all should make it a point to do that.”
For more information about Fatima, visit her website or follow her socials:
Check out the video interview here:
