Meet Steffy — the hands behind mello

Hi, I’m Steffy. Teacher by training, maker by nature, and mum to the one who tests everything first.

A year ago we moved to Dubai, and I wanted to build something of my own, with my own hands. So I started small, at the kitchen table. I learned which clay holds its shape, how to pour a mould that doesn’t crack, how to mix a colour so it lands the way it looks in my head. Most of the early ones failed, and some still do.

The pop-ups at ARTE taught me the rest: people picked things up, asked questions, came back the next weekend. In between, I taught myself to film reels on my phone, one messy pour at a time, and six hundred of you found mello that way, with no ads and no tricks, just people who liked what they saw and stayed.

I began with plaster of Paris and little figurines made to be painted. Today it’s Jesmonite: vases, trays and trinket dishes, poured one at a time. Every piece is cast once and sealed once, so what you take home is the only one like it.

Create, play, treasure. That’s still the whole idea.

— Steffy, founder, mello