When she was a child, Yasmin Agha loved playing shop. Dolls, building blocks and toy cars were rejected in favour of receipt books and branding, and her parents were drafted into playing customers to Agha’s shopkeeper. Years later, she was all set to leave Lebanon and move to England, where she was due to start a PhD and embark on a life as an academic. It should have been a dream come true, but something felt wrong. “What do you want to do?” her dad joked. “Open a shop?” Agha realised that that was exactly what she wanted.
Today, she is the proud owner of Cookie Dough, a luxury boutique that started in Beirut and more recently spread to Kuwait City, stocking some of the world’s most exclusive fashion lines for children. But Cookie Dough is much more than just a shop. In addition to selling clothing and shoes for children aged zero to 12 – as well everything else new parents might need, from bottles and nappies to cribs and strollers – Cookie Dough offers a range of innovative services through their ‘Nursery Consulting Centre’.
At its most basic level, the centre helps couples come up with an exhaustive list of everything they might need to take care of a new baby. “What we do is we meet with parents who are expecting,” Agha explains, “and we go through a very detailed checklist. We also do a lifestyle interview, based on which we can make suggestions. The nursery consulting service is absolutely free of charge and there is absolutely no obligation to buy – although obviously, most people end up getting what they need.”
In keeping with its focus on cutting edge, exquisitely made clothes and products, Cookie Dough gets full marks on aesthetics. With its pale wooden floors, discreet lighting and clean, well-sorted displays, the store radiates an aura of luxury and calm. You can see the attention to detail in every aspect and it comes with little surprise to learn that even the window displays are personally dressed by Agha each season, usually with the aim of evoking the magic of a fairy tale. Right now, you’ll find the story of a white rabbit, poised on its hind legs, surveying what lies beyond, beneath a hot air balloon made of willow and papier-mâché and a miniature tree covered with bursts of pale pink blossom.
“Of course, it’s important to appeal to kids, but our clients are adults,” Agha says. “What’s essential is to touch the child in the adult. It’s like when you drive past a Ferris wheel – no matter how old you are, something tingles inside.”
That’s not to say Cookie Dough doesn’t cater to children. “We also have a kids’ styling service, which is a lot of fun. When they have a special event we talk to the kids and find out exactly what they want and we help them choose the perfect something – within the parents’ budget and limitations, obviously. We’re very much aware of the risk that is placed when children are exposed to superficiality and materialism at a young age and we try as much as we can to take that out of the experience. We focus on asking the right questions such as, ‘What makes you happy?’ and ‘What do you like?’ rather than ‘What do you think looks good?’”
To help parents navigate these kinds of complexities, Cookie Dough runs a programme of free monthly seminars, led by experts in varying fields – like early childhood development, pregnancy and nutrition – with a focus on topics as diverse as the effect media has on children, discipline, breastfeeding, hypnobirthing and mental health.
This added function of the Nursery Consulting Centre has proved to be a decisive hit, in part, as Agha admits, because it has highlighted a lack of access to such information through more conventional channels. “It’s the first in the Middle East and actually I’ve come to find out that it's a very unique concept worldwide,” Agha states. “There are community centres across Europe and the U.S. that provide the sort of support and guidance that we offer but I haven’t yet found a boutique that offers this kind of service. My background is in sociology, so to me the most important part of the business is reaching out to parents, creating a community where they can find the guidance that they need.”
Agha opened her first shop in 2009 and the Nursery Consulting Centre in 2011. A year after that, she added another string to her bow with an events service. Cookie Dough now organises baby showers, children’s birthday parties, and even the odd party for daddy.
When I meet Agha at her original Beirut boutique, we sit to chat on a comfortable leather sofa, surrounded by racks of miniature T-shirts and shelves of tiny shoes. Ever the consummate hostess, she jumps up frequently to greet customers by name and enquire about their families. She explains that this is quite usual because the clients of Cookie Dough often become friends of hers, adding that she chooses not to have an office, preferring to spend her time in the boutique so that she’s always on hand to help as she can.
Cookie Dough’s philosophy is obviously working because in May, the store celebrated the grand opening of their first overseas outlet, Cookie Dough Kuwait, and Agha says there are further plans for expansion in the form of pop-up shops, both regionally and internationally. Although she’s obviously excited by the prospect, she is also circumspect.
“I don’t want to ever get bigger than my boots,” she stresses. “I want to be present personally, to connect with the clients, to create the kind of hub that we’ve created in Beirut. We won’t be expanding at the expense of what we’ve already built, which often does happen. We will never be a chain or a franchise.”
The Kuwait branch is an exception, she explains, a combination of franchise and partnership. “We were approached by a lovely couple who were interested in the concept, had the same philosophy as us and were willing to work in a way that we admired,” she explains. “Also Kuwait is a wonderful city. Fashion-wise they are risk-takers.”
The boutique may be firmly anchored in the luxury market, stocking brands sold only at Cookie Dough, Harrods, and Bergdorf Goodman and even boasting its own limousine service, but Agha’s human-led ethos is about inclusivity, not being exclusive.
“It’s funny,” she says with a laugh. “I really feel as if my entire childhood I was preparing to do exactly what I’m doing today. Sometimes life brings you full circle. It’s amazing.”
WHAT Cookie Dough
FOUNDER Yasmin Agha
WHERE Beirut and Kuwait City
WHY It may cater to kids but this is no child’s play. Cookie Dough is a notable luxury business because it continues to think outside the box, creating customers who are as grateful as they are loyal. A rare feat indeed.
