Nada Debs’s Dubai design outpost merges studio and shop in a beautiful, luminous space

A design brand’s studio should reflect its ethos. Particularly when the space in question also functions as a shop, offering a point of contact with the public. Nada Debs fulfils that brief at her new outpost in Dubai.

“We’ve fused together our studio space and boutique, helping us deliver on our main mission of supporting craftsmen in Lebanon and the Middle East,” says Debs, who meets Monocle at her new outpost at The Yard at Alserkal Avenue, a hub of design, art and creativity. “We realised that the only way we could deliver on this vision was to open a boutique to create demand for the craftsmen’s work. But at the same time, a lot of our clients are interior designers, so we needed a studio space to show bigger pieces, samples and materials and to collaborate on craft.”

The opening is a significant milestone for Debs’s namesake brand. It’s her first place outside Beirut and comes at a time when her son, Tamer Khatib, has joined as managing director. It is split over two levels. The ground-floor boutique feels homely, with wood panelling and screens and poured terrazzo flooring providing the backdrop for home accessories and furniture. A curved staircase leads to the second-floor studio, which has an industrial vibe. The contrasting aesthetics represent Debs’s design ethos, also reflected in two circular windows illuminating the second floor.

“The circles are an important motif because the brand’s always been about duality,” says Debs, who was raised in Japan. “Today, we’re between Beirut and Dubai, a mother-son duo, and are balancing commercial in the boutique with artistic in the studio space. We want to show that we all have these dualities in us and that they can work nicely together.
nadadebs.com