When Tala, 33, first set her sights on becoming a designer it wasn’t because she dreamed of seeing her clothes on the latest “it” girl. Her ambitions were much more humble. She wanted to offer women across the globe the freedom to wear exactly what they liked.

Growing up in Tehran, Iran, this was a privilege that Tala was denied. Aged 16, in 1998, while at a friend’s house party, she was arrested for wearing a short skirt. Held at gunpoint, she was hauled in jail and kept there for fi ve days.

Before her release, Tala was subjected to 40 lashes by female guards as punishment for her crime. Tala describes what life was like growing up under the restrictions of Iran’s strict government regime.

“Women had to be covered from head to toe and luxuries most take for granted, such as wearing make-up and listening to pop music, were strictly off limits,” she says.

While her parents weren’t strict by nature, they were scared of clashing with the government and Tala remembers coming to blows with them on numerous occasions over her lack of freedom. “I grew up in a modern family,” says Tala, who now lives in Virginia, US.

“We had beauty, culture and love. My parents encouraged me to try tennis and cooking. After school I would listen to Mariah Carey on illegal radio channels. “Yet make-up was forbidden and if you were spotted wearing it you would be in trouble. When outside, you had to be covered from head to toe. Bikinis, well you could forget them altogether.”

When she was around eight years old Tala found an output, fashion. Although foreign fashion magazines were prohibited in Iran she would pore over illegal copies in the safety of her home. While doing so, Tala dreamed of being a designer herself. “Restrictions made me resourceful,” she says. “Barbie dolls were banned in Iran but when relatives came to visit they smuggled them in and I would dress them.

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