Our Place was born when Shahid, 33, noticed there wasn’t a company designing products that honoured food traditions from diverse cultures, and made cooking simple and fun – particularly in a kitchen without much space.
Having learnt to cook as an adult ‘as a lifeline to my heritage’, she saw an opportunity. And while her brand is all the rage on Instagram, Shahid (who doesn’t ‘enjoy posting my own life on social media’) is concerned with influence of a different kind.‘Social mission is very important to the business.
I’m an immigrant, my partner is an immigrant,’ she tells me. Shahid was born in Pakistan, and her husband and co-founder, Amir Tehrani, was born in Iran; the couple now live in Los Angeles.‘Our team is majority female, BIPOC [black, indigenous and people of colour] and immigrant or first-generation, and so seeing our cultures – seeing all traditions – celebrated and uplifted is very important.
The kitchenware industry and food media haven’t always centred on traditions which cross cultures, acknowledged where raw ingredients and recipes come from or called them by their right names… A lot of that has been overlooked for a very long time.’Shahid’s personal sense of ‘social mission’ was honed early.
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