A gorgeous photo popped up on Instagram one Sunday afternoon. Indicating a ‘like’ for the image was just too easy — I wanted more… The more was thankfully found and I now share the story behind the images, as well as the interior designer and artist Arwa Turra, who summarises her design philosophy in three words — Make It Blissful… It’s no idle boast.

Style Observer (SO): How and where did this journey start?

Arwa Turra (AT): I was always artistic and learnt basic drawing skills during my interior design course but this journey with flowers and fashion actually started after the birth of my daughter. With the arrival of a girl I started looking for flowers in everything from hair clips to dresses. Eventually, I self-taught fabric flower-making through YouTube videos and I started making hair clips and tutus for my daughters and my friend’s daughters. But being an interior designer and hardcore fashion lover I wanted to do something beyond this with my flowers, hence, I came up with this unique concept of making flower dresses for the models in my illustrations on the canvas.

SO: Who is Arwa Turra?

AT: Arwa is foremost a mother and a designer at heart. I am an admirer of everything that is beautiful. I am a self-taught artist, crafter and consider myself still an amateur in this field. Professionally I am an interior designer and have done many villas and restaurants in India and the United Arab Emirates. But by hobby I am a hardcore fashion lover, fashion addict and crafter.

SO: What inspires the work?

AT: My design philosophy is “Make it Blissful”. You will see this tagline on all my design presentations. Be it fashion or a space, if you are not happy in the space you live or work and not happy with what you wear, then the effort is a waste; and this is my biggest inspiration. I do things that make me happy and feel contented. Art, fashion and design do that to me and that keeps me going.

I love fashion, and during my college days when I used to see my friends in fashion designing courses do their work, I used to get very excited and that inspiration stayed with me. Also, the professional photo-shoots done by Vogue, Free People and other fashion sources are my inspiration. I also source photo shoots and DIY projects from Pinterest.

Rest assured, whatever I do with my work is my imagination and creativity.

SO: How would you react to the tag — runway designer?

AT: My jaws would drop and it would be like a dream come true, but I know it is a long way to go. Having watched closely how fashion designers work during my interior designing days, I know how much learning and work goes into a great fashion design and I really want to learn it and someday I will. Although with my little knowledge and extensive research, I still do some small projects of fashion designing like designing some of my and my cousins’ and friends’ outfits and my daughters’ cute dresses.

SO: How do people react to your work?

AT: When I started posting my work on social media I gained a lot of love and appreciation from friends and followers from around the world. They look forward to what I am going to do next and that really drives and motivates me to do more. Many friends have requested me to teach it to them. I have even posted some tutorials for them, which they appreciated, and some even said they are going to start something like this.

SO: You are an interior design consultant. How do you incorporate your glorious art pieces?

AT: I am passionate about making things look beautiful and that’s the reason I learnt and practised interior design and later on developed an interest in craft and fashion design. As an interior designer I have done wall art in floral designs and motifs in wood carving. I have designed floral art for the villa’s ceilings, floorings in marble and even wooden headboards. I have designed a spa bathroom with stone walls etched in flowers since a flower in a spa bathroom adds to the tranquillity.

SO: Who buys your pieces and where in the world are they hanging?

They are hanging in my friends’ houses for now. My art on canvas is very recent and I haven’t yet commercially sold my pieces till now. I have gifted a few to some close friends in the US and some art lovers in Dubai and India where I have lived in the past. Only last month, I started selling them on my Etsy shop which is named ‘Arwa Designs’ after my interior design firm that I had in Dubai. I think anyone who is stylish and appreciates fashion, architecture and flowers will love to own my art.

The Paris Series…

This series of art was the result of my love for fashion, flowers and Paris. I used inks and charcoal for the city sketches, acrylics and my handmade and ready-made fabric flowers to dress up the girls.

The dreamer — This illustration tells the story of the dreamer. Her long deep yellow gown suits her wanderer personality. These lines will summarise her better:

“La belle femme just could not sleep,

Because her thoughts were way too deep,

Her mind has gone out for a stroll,

On the dark Paris streets.”

The free-spirited and the confident chic — Her floral and chic blue dress tunes with her confident walk:

“He offered her the world

She said, I have my own.”

The happy girl on the bike — Her white and pastel rosettes dress looks as charming as her personality and is the right street style to wear in the romantic atmosphere of the beautiful Montmartre in Paris. The special thing about this painting is that the arrangement of flowers is being done in two layers. The rear layer in white hand-made satin rosettes and the front layer of flowers in bright colours dropping from the bike’s basket. This is a very good example of a 3-D painting with different layers of various depths:

“I’d rather have flowers in my hair

Than the diamonds on my neck,

For I am happy with these little pleasures of life

And oh boy!

What fun it is to ride your own horse, on the winding rues of the Montmartre.”

The ballet dancers’ set — “Dance to express, not to impress” The dance so elegant that every artist might want to capture it. I focussed on using white and shades for the flowers and petals to dress the dancers’ tutus and skirts since the theme of white and black was bringing out the fluidity in the dance postures of ballet very well.