Alongside his partner Katy, Saeed Al-Rubeyi is co-founder of unisex fashion brand STORY mfg, both from a desire to create garments they thought were missing from the fashion landscape. They focus on sustainability + health through natural dyeing - using herbs, leaves, bark, heartwood and fruits to colour cloth and create prints. Today Saeed shares an insight as to what keeps him balanced on the daily.
- How do you find your daily source of Golden Balance?
Balance to us looks a little different to most. We are business partners and a married couple but it works really well for us because we feed off each others creativity and enthusiasm for different parts of the business. Also, because we work in seasons we tend to have a few very intense periods of work with lots of more relaxing periods in-between where we generally travel or spend time with family. We have no studio which is really freeing - we can work from pretty much anywhere (usually: bed, kitchen, beach, forest).
- How important is self-care to you, and do you often implement it into your regular rituals?
Very important - although we have different ideas we both agree on good food that makes you feel happy. Katy buys and uses natural (vegan - animal testing is a crime) skincare and we try our best to escape city air and transport as often as possible.
- Share with us a quote that gives you daily inspiration.
“Never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing.” - Ron Swanson
- We know nourishment from the inside out fundamental to you. How do you practice this every day?
We love to buy local and natural ingredients where we can - organic is a good start but it’s not the be-all and end-all for us - I think there’s lots of other more important practices for agriculture. We eat A LOT of different types of fruit and veg - we are sort of veg-tourists (especially for mushrooms) and we also experiment a lot with different diets and ways of eating to see how beneficial they can be for us.
- What are some of your favourite ways to wind down?
Being plainly honest watching shows online in bed is pretty unbeatable.
- Ingredients-wise, what are your three non-negotiables in the kitchen?
Salt, spice (baharat is a fave mix) and garlic.
- Now tell us, do you have a guilty pleasure?
Personally it’s Katy’s baking - Katy’s is Booja-Booja chocolates.
- What is your favourite way to use turmeric, be it in your beauty regime or recipes?
We love the Cacao turmeric milk from you guys and it’s probably how we most often use it - although I am quite liberal with it when I make hash browns or vegan scramble. Another fave is for dyeing! We used to use it quite a lot and only stopped because we got a similar tone from jackfruit bark (which is left over from the food industry - waste not!)
- Matcha or turmeric latte?
Turmeric every time!