By Rahina began as a personal shift - a move away from structure and towards something more intuitive, creative and rooted in heritage.
What followed is a body of work that brings Dhofari culture into a contemporary space, without losing its meaning. We spoke with Rahina about her journey, her process, and the stories that shape each piece.
What motivated you to launch Rahina?
Creating the brand felt like a calling to me, one day it just arrived, but there were signs. In 2021, I quit my corporate job and moved to Zanzibar for a few months because I felt I needed space from the corporate world and wanted to something more meaningful in my life.
There I met Maria, a Masaai woman who would create her tribal beaded jewellery on the beach everyday. Over time, I went from buying a piece a day from her to sitting on the beach alongside her while she taught me through sign language how to string the beads together.
The gesture of her inviting me into her little world felt so wholesome, it shifted something in me. It inspired me to think differently about work, independence, and what it means to build something with my own hands. One day, I woke up and it all came to me. I sketched the logo, wrote out the name, created the plan, the brand story and everything just came together. I reached out to suppliers I had met in Turkey and India and had them ship some beads and things home.
Once the idea was fully formulated and my items were on the way, I rushed to fly back home. This was during COVID, so I had to quarantine in my room for a week. Undisturbed, I began making jewellery on the floor of my room, I remember forgetting to eat and just in a trance making once piece after the other.
Rahina is actually named after my favourite traditional Dhofari piece, a family heirloom that was created by an uncle who was a goldsmith, I have such fond memories of it, seeing how my mother adorns herself in special occasions with our family heirlooms just felt like a magical experience growing up. One thing I love about Dhofari jewellery is that every single piece has a name and a language of it’s own, certain pieces are worn at certain occasions to tell a specific story. So I wanted to share these little nuiances with the world through my brand.
More than anything, I wanted to step away from the soul sucking structure of the corporate world that I found myself in and build a life where I could work with meaning, creativity and full autonomy.
Rahina became a way to connect to my heritage, shaped by memories of my mother and the matriarchs of my family and a way to share the special nuances of my heritage and culture with others. By Rahina began as a personal shift -a move away from structure and towards something more intuitive, creative and rooted in heritage.
How do you begin developing a new collection?
My process has evolved over time. In the beginning, I was not creating cohesive collections, but individual one-off pieces. These were exploratory, starting with hand-drawn designs that I would share directly with silversmiths. The process is highly collaborative. Each silversmith has a specific skillset, and I work within that while also pushing it into unfamiliar territory. From the start, I have focused on developing original designs using traditional techniques.
Prototyping can take between three to six months, so the process is slow and built on constant testing, adjustment and refinement. I am not classically trained in jewellery design or silversmithing, so everything is developed through close collaboration with the artisans I work with.
The foundation of the work comes from my lived experience across different places and cultures. I grew up between Cebu in the Philippines, Muscat and Dhofar in Oman. That movement between geographies shaped a very fluid understanding of identity and belonging, and how it shifts depending on context.
My research is mainly focused on my Dhofari heritage, grounded in memory, observation, and lived experience. As there is very little written documentation and literature on Dhofar, anything Dhofari can inspire a design, I mainly look into the architectural design, family heirlooms, oral histories and everyday life.
Dhofar itself holds a distinct cultural and ecological identity within Oman. Its landscape, traditions, and multiple ancient oral languages that are not derived from Arabic, alongside a local Arabic dialect that is not widely understood, even within the country, create a very specific cultural environment.
My work becomes a way of holding all of these experiences together. Each collection is rooted in a specific story. I use design as a tool to translate these stories into material form, turning them into objects that carry cultural meaning.
How do you incorporate Dhofari elements in a way that still feels modern?
What makes Dhofar feel timeless to me is that its design language comes from a deeply lived, practical relationship with the land. Whether in jewellery, crafts, or architecture, these forms were not created as aesthetic statements. They emerged from daily life. That is what gives them their longevity.
As a mixed heritage person, I move across cultures, languages and ways of being. This allows me to work fluidly across different systems of thought and expression, and translate between them in my design process.
For me, culture is not static, it evolves and is living and breathing. I am interested in showcasing the spirit of Dhofari elements in a contemporary context.
For example, my Hirz collection, inspired by the Dhofari hirz is a traditional protective silver amulet worn as part of a daily necklace. It is typically formed as a small silver bead placed on either side of the neck when worn, positioned so that it sits on the shoulders and is believed to protect both the right and left side of the body.
The hirz sits within a wider tradition of protective amulets found across SWANA, including the Khamsa, or Hand of Fatma. Both are rooted in the same belief system of protection and safeguarding against the evil eye, but they take on different physical forms depending on cultural context. The Khamsa is typically shaped as an open hand, while the Dhofari hirz is expressed as an ornate, eye-like form within jewellery.
In my work, I repositioned the hirz within the necklace. Instead of placing the amuletic beads on either side, I brought it into the centre. The gesture allows the object to be read differently. Its original meaning remains, but its visibility changes. It becomes a focal point within the piece, where form and symbolism are encountered directly rather than held at the edges.
Who is the woman you design for?
I design for a woman who is drawn to meaning. She is thoughtful about what she chooses to bring into her life. She values pieces that carry intention and she is interested in building a relationship with what she wears rather than consuming it quickly.
She is also someone who is curious and can recognize the importance of revitalizing underrepresented heritage. She is interested in craft, in slow processes and in cultures that are often overlooked or reduced to surface references.
Rahina is for women who want to curate their lives with intention, and who are interested in supporting work that is rooted in culture, backed with research and made with care.
What moment has defined the brand so far?
There are many moments that have shaped Rahina, but one moment stands out to me because it showed me what the work I’ve been doing can hold.
In 2025, during the Islamic Biennale in Jeddah, I was invited to host a workshop introducing Dhofar to the Saudi market through my practice. Not only did it sell out within hours online, but it was also above the capacity, which felt very surreal to me because I was completely unknown in Saudi, it made me feel that what I was offering had substance and there were some people interested in it.
In it, I introduced Mabrooka, a local Dhofari silversmith I had been working with to support the revival of silversmithing among women in my hometown. Silversmithing was historically a women-led craft in Dhofar, but it went extinct in 2021 when the last known female silversmith passed away taking her craft with her.
In 2024, I learned about a government-led training programme in Oman aimed at reintroducing the craft. Through this, I attended a graduation session where I met Mabrooka. She is a mother of nine who, after raising her children, finally had the time and space to return to something she had always wanted to learn.
Silversmithing is resource-intensive, so we began working in a very practical way. I sat with her and had a discussion on how can I possibly support her in order for her to grow her practice. And so we worked on a few practice pieces and worked together on creating some charms and beads for the workshop in Biennale, launching this collaboration between us.
At the Biennale, seeing her work presented, hearing her name spoken, and watching people engage with what she had made felt significant. It felt like something that had been interrupted was continuing again through collaboration and care. Not as a revival in concept, but as a living practice carried forward.