Ten years ago, Lisseth Villalobos-Azab, the founder and managing director of Create Twenty Two consultancy, flew to Los Angeles with a dream—and her luggage filled with fashion from Middle Eastern designers. She knew in her bones that if Tinseltown was able to access the talented MENA designers she represented, they wouldn’t be able to resist them.

How right she was.

She ended up getting looks from three out of the five designers worn by celebrities in her first foray into the fast-paced world of red-carpet dressing. Now—a decade, two showrooms, and countless “step and repeat” and celebrity moments later—she and Shahad Boraji, the company’s creative director, have built a bridge between Hollywood, Saudi Arabia, and the MENA region that has stylists from around the world clamouring to cross. The duo have been instrumental in bringing international awareness to regional brands in a way that organically celebrates their unique sartorial perspectives.

When I finally jump on a call with Villalobos-Azab and Boraji one evening, the conversation kicks off with a discussion about the struggle of managing two showrooms, one in Los Angeles and the other in Jeddah, at almost diametrically opposite ends of the world. They both laugh with the wry knowing laughter of women who understand how to work on “two hours of sleep.” It’s clearly a joke, but also very plausible.

The origin story of the company really begins with a void that Villalobos-Azab wanted to fill. Ten years ago she was producing events across the GCC and paying attention to the pain points she was spotting along the way. “I noticed that there was a gap where we weren’t seeing some of these really talented MENA designers internationally,” she recalls. Asked why, the women were unanimous: “They didn’t really have a landing place, and they didn’t have a representation that truly knew the culture or the region.”

Villalobos-Azab started small, with that first trip to Los Angeles. But it was an incredibly fruitful trip. Out of the regional brand placements, one placement led, eventually, to that designer dressing Beyoncé; the other landed on an album cover. Not bad for a market everyone had warned her would be closed. “We did think that there was going to be some difficulty,” she admits. “But in the creative space that we work in, people are just looking for genuine, good-quality pieces. And if the piece fits the project and the aesthetic and the celebrity, then it’s just a nice merger.”

Ask her to name the tipping point for Middle Eastern fashion on the American red carpet, and she points to the moment that Céline Dion decided to wear an Ashi Studio design for the first time. But as for her own company, she has a harder time homing in on a precise instance. “I don’t know if there’s a specific moment, because the relationships that we’ve built over the years with the creatives internationally, obviously specifically in Hollywood, have always welcomed it openly.”

It’s those relationships that they have carefully nurtured over the years that are the real assets for the pair. Recognising that the gatekeepers aren’t the stars but the stylists beside them, Create Twenty Two made an unusual structural call. “We say we have two clients,” Villalobos-Azab explains. “On one side it’s the brand and the designers, and the other is the creatives and the stylists.” Both groups get looked after. What the stylists get from the consultancy is discretion and access to ensembles that nobody else can hand them. “The stylists know that with us they can get something that is going to be unique, and it’s going to be good quality, and no one else is going to have it in the market,” affirms Boraji.

Then three years ago, with the Red Sea Film Festival and the Joy Awards seeing a growing number of A-list Hollywood stars in attendance and the widening popularity of the Saudi Cup, the pair decided it was finally time to open a showroom in the Kingdom. “What took me maybe five years in LA has taken us one year in the Saudi showroom, because we are the only Saudi PR fashion showroom right now in the Kingdom,” Boraji explains. “When there are these big events, all of the celebrities, all of the stylists love to come and try things on. Sometimes we can’t get them to leave,” adds Villalobos-Azab.

In the beginning, the duo admit that there was a bit of an education to do first with the locals. “A lot of people thought that we were a boutique, or one particular brand versus representing multiples,” says Villalobos-Azab. The stylists, on the other hand, needed no briefing whatsoever. “The stylists just flocked. They got it instantly,” says Boraji.

The proof of concept for the second showroom came at last year’s Red Sea Film Festival, and Villalobos-Azab still sounds stunned by the tally. “I counted—I think we did 22 placements on the red carpet, which is insane,” she recalls. It was also when they let themselves stop and finally take a moment to enjoy the success that had come from all their hard work. “After that one, we definitely took a step back and said, ‘Wow, we really did it.’ And now we’re fully functioning in both locations,” remembers Boraji.

Two showrooms, over 10,000 kilometres apart, have produced what Boraji calls the real pivot—running opposite to the direction everyone predicted. “Now we’re seeing a reverse effect, where the designers, the talent from here in Saudi, are actually going to the LA showroom,” she says. “And the international talent, the stylists, are flying all the way here to go to the Saudi showroom. It’s becoming like a revolving door of different kinds of talents from all around the world.”

The traffic runs both ways commercially, too. “We are open to introducing international brands to the GCC market,” shares Villalobos-Azab, who reads the appetite as a consequence of Vision 2030. “Dubai has been around forever, but Saudi has amplified that even more. And obviously numbers don’t lie.”

Boraji, who handles strategy and positioning for Create Twenty Two, is firm that a red carpet is not an endpoint. “For me it will always be the structuring of the brand,” she says, citing labels the company has helped to grow from barely breaking even to hitting six figures a month. Her pitch to any designer, anywhere: “When you come to Create, we will help you create that full ecosystem—and not just give you that instant wow moment.”

The duo already have a strong five-year plan mapped out, though neither will say to what: more services in gaps they can see and won’t yet name, plus a teaching project close to Villalobos-Azab’s heart. “It’s great that we can provide the service, but how do we take it to the masses?” she posits. But if there’s one thing she wants on the record at the ten-year mark of her business, it is that the underlying principle of Create Twenty Two is to be open and available to any creatives that feel they have a story to tell. “Even if we don’t work with you right off the bat, we’re still here to provide some sort of support for creatives. Not to be shy to approach us, no matter how small or how big your goal is,” she says.

As we close out our conversation, I have to ask, why the name Create Twenty Two? The answer shows just how heartfelt the foundation of this business is. “I got married on the 22nd,” reveals Villalobos-Azab, “and both of my children were born on the 22nd.” The company might have started with a lucky number, but these two women have clearly made their own luck.

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