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It says something about Noor Al Muhaideb that so much of her inherent warmth can be felt just through the steady and soothing sound of her voice on our call. We had barely exchanged names before discovering that we had both studied at the American University of Sharjah. She walked its halls in its second year of existence, while I attended closer to two decades later. That small overlap set the tone for the hour that followed, less an interview than a conversation between two people who share a connection.

Al Muhaideb graduated from the school in 2003 and immediately landed a position at Emaar, where she stayed for 15 years working across projects in the UAE, India, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Then in 2016 she decided to go out on her own, launching Opaal Interiors. In the beginning the studio consisted of her and one other person. Today it has grown into a team of more than 30. But even with all that impressive progress, when it comes to the concept of aesthetics, the designer still holds fast to a founding idea that has been something of a North Star since the start of her career. “Design really is about the feeling that it gives you when you step into any home,” she affirms. “I realised early on that design is not decor, it’s emotion.”

Leaving Emaar took what she calls a leap of faith, made harder rather than easier by how much the company had stretched her. “The pace was extremely fast, the projects were large, and I was always challenged,” she says of her time there, pushing back gently on the idea that she was leaving a comfort zone, although she admits that the first two years at Opaal meant relearning her own industry from the opposite side of the table, adjusting to life as a studio rather than a client, though she credits her years at Emaar with giving her an instinct for what a developer needs before they have finished asking for it.

Nowhere did that instinct matter more than on Mansory Residences, Opaal’s debut project and the first time her company took on a brand with such a distinctive identity. “We understood from day one the responsibility that came with this trust,” she recalls, describing the challenge less as a matter of matching a look and more as translating a name into somewhere people would actually want to live. Incorporating regional heritage elements into her designs, in her telling, works the same way. She resists any reading of her work as an obvious nod to Emirati identity, insisting the influence sits in behaviour and feeling rather than ornament. For Al Muhaideb, this means it can be found in the muted hues and unshowy materials she gravitates toward regardless of budget. “That’s always something I’m attached to, the calm tones,” she confirms. “Something that does not scream in your face.”

She is equally direct about what she wants for the women in her studio, where the team is mostly female and where she describes giving people responsibility as one of the more rewarding parts of her work. “If a woman is successful, the door needs to be open for the next person to walk through it,” she shares. It’s a line delivered with none of the caution that so often creeps into these conversations. A clear indication that this is a woman with a profound insight into her own standing in her field, is comfortable with her accomplishments, and has an expansive perspective when it comes to uplifting other women to join her in telling their own design stories.

In fact, Al Muhaideb talks about the young Emirati designers now coming up behind her with an encouragement that never tips into condescension. “I’ve seen a lot of young UAE designers and artists, and they work with passion,” she says, noting that the quality of what they are producing already stands shoulder to shoulder with the best being proposed internationally, not because of where they are from but because of the high calibre work, they are executing. “Dubai right now is a city of design,” she says. “People come here to experience the hospitality, the architecture, and the design. It’s one of the world’s most iconic cities.”

By the time our conversation ended, it was easy to understand why Al Muhaideb has become known as something of a design whisperer. She has an innate ability to tap into the interior design desires of her clients. Even when they can’t find the words to describe exactly how they want a space to look or feel, she, to put it simply, just knows how to read a room.

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