Zayan Ghandour, the creative mind behind contemporary luxury ready-to-wear line Zayan The Label and S*uce, our beloved homegrown boutique, hope the crisis will stop us taking the world and each other for granted.

How are you finding the transition to a new way of working/life?
Even though I miss my team and miss all the brainstorming and fun stuff that goes around while we are together at the office, I love working from home. Right now, the most important thing is to stay grounded and focused on what is really important and keep the bigger picture in perspective. Being at home is the best place to do that.

What have been the biggest challenges?
Like many designers, our small business has been affected by retailers cancelling their SS20 orders as well as having to deal with excess seasonal stock. Other than that, there aren’t many significant challenges happening while we are staying home because almost everywhere in the world is at a standstill. The real challenge is when we are allowed to go back to our regular pace of daily activity because that’s when we will have to figure out what we need to do after all that has happened and we will need to adjust to whatever the new normal lifestyle will be.

What’s been the most pleasant surprise?
The most pleasant surprise is how calm I have been during these trying times. Like all of us, I have no clue what will happen next and what will need to be our new business direction, or what kind of clothes we need to be designing and producing, but I do know that we will need to feel our way around, so as not to rush into an auto-pilot operation mode. And then take it one day at a time.

What are your hopes for the future?
I hope we stop taking the world and each other for granted because if one thing this crisis has shown us is that whatever, or whoever may be here today can easily be gone tomorrow.

What message do you have for Grazia readers?
Everything will be OK in the end and if it is not OK, then it is not the end.

Photo: Supplied