Furless Beauty Institute, Dubai

Inspired to bring about a flickering of hope for the future beyond the pandemic, Founder and Creative Director of Brand Creative, Carla Conte formed the Fempreneur program in mid 2020. In a time of uncertainty and widespread hardship she chose to work with selected homegrown female led SMEs in the Middle East who were in the midst of rebranding and in need of transformative design for their businesses. During this time, she met Mariela Marcantetti, an energetic and inspiring business woman who embraced change by switching careers from finance to beauty. Mariela developed an electrolysis brand called Furless after her own desperate search for permanent hair removal.

This innovative beauty concept focuses on hair removal that is effectively permanent, and is quickly spreading throughout the region. The Furless brand is encapsulated by an overall futuristic, fresh aesthetic coupled with the highest quality equipment, latest technology and properly trained staff.

With a passion for beauty and transformation, Mariela has uncovered a vast need to build on the Furless brand by developing an educational system that could support the region’s growth with global high standards. Uniting in the name of empowerment and with a vision to advance beauty education by furthering the skills of therapists in electrolysis, hair, makeup and body treatments, Furless Beauty Institute was born.

The brief was to build upon the aesthetic created for the Furless brand but to focus on a more concentrated palette of blues and violets in both material selection and custom graphics creation. With infographics being a critical element to conveying messages to students, Brand Creative’s in-house graphics team set out to hand draw custom icons based on the female face and figure. We also played with font selection and scale to ensure legibility and absorption of information within the classroom environments.

The design is inspired by a dichroic palette taken from colours cast by a prism. The prism was fundamental to the concept as it represents the dispersing of beams of light. In the same way, we likened that education sheds light on the mind and expands the human experience to a more colourful existence. Needing to work with materials that are hard wearing yet comfortable, as the institute can host up to 75 teachers and students at a time, we found ourselves challenged by limiting colour palettes and uninspired textures. Our solution to this was to involve local suppliers who could provide solid surfacing and custom fabric and wallpaper printing to accommodate our own selection of prints and colours. Gradients of colours were then possible to be introduced throughout, further solidifying our prismatic inspiration. Testing these materials for their efficiency and robustness was key and involved time induced absorption of chemicals from products being used on a daily basis.

The space is divided into a series of theory and practical classrooms but designed to mimic salon and spa environments that students are likely to encounter in their careers. Amenity spaces such as lockers, breakout spaces and bathrooms, were carefully designed to be comfortable, practical and above all stylish. Collectively the overall design is fun and vibrant with each space celebrating a different colour of the prismatic spectrum. It was really important to keep the energy positive and uplifting as you move throughout the various rooms.