For CMOs and brand leads tracking how luxury houses actually build regional relevance, not merely through a campaign, this one’s worth a close read. The Abu Dhabi Media Office announced that the Tiffany & Co. Design Residency Program was launched in Abu Dhabi under the chairwomanship of Her Highness Sheikha Shamsa bint Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Nahyan, in partnership with Design Commission Abu Dhabi (DCAD).
Driving the initiative for Tiffany is Ghia Hawari, the Brand’s Marketing and Communications Director for the Middle East and Africa. Hawari is known in the industry as one of the strongest luxury marketers, having launched the first-ever brand collaboration with AlUla in 2019, and the Tiffany takeover of Abu Dhabi in 2024. She is also part of the core team that repositioned Tiffany in the Middle East after the LVMH acquisition, and she is among Communicate‘s Best Marketers List 2026.
Forget the campaign shoot. Tiffany’s latest brand play doesn’t come with a celebrity face or a blue-box unboxing. It comes with a syllabus, handing ten emerging UAE talents a front-row seat to nearly 200 years of jewellery and watchmaking know-how. Call it localization with a learning curve, and DCAD’s boldest move yet at turning Abu Dhabi into a design capital. It’s also a live case study in how one of the region’s most closely watched marketers is choosing to spend her cultural capital, betting on talent infrastructure over another ad flight.
Why Brand Leads Should Be Paying Attention
Skip the campaign brief because this is a talent play. Rather than renting cultural credibility through a one-off partnership, Tiffany is building it, brick by brick, through mentorship, workshops and an actual career pipeline. It’s the luxury equivalent of trading a billboard for a scholarship: slower, less flashy, and if it works, a lot stickier. For an industry obsessed with “authentic” regional storytelling, this is what actually putting your money where your mouth is looks like.
And for the region’s next wave of creators, it’s a crash course from the inside: ideation, material research, and hands-on experimentation, all building toward a design language they can call their own.
The Fine Print
- Focus: Jewellery and watch design, fusing Emirati culture, architecture and heritage with Tiffany’s own design DNA.
- Format: Weekly sessions on Saturdays at a dedicated Abu Dhabi venue, November 2026 through April 2027.
- Who’s In: UAE nationals and residents, 21+, with foundational design skills.
- The Cohort: Just ten spots, via an open call running through 20 September 2026. Apply on this LINK.
- The Prize: The top three residents will land a three-month internship at Tiffany’s New York headquarters, June–August 2027.
- The Finale: A Capstone Exhibition in May 2027, putting resident work on Abu Dhabi’s cultural stage.
The Takeaway
This isn’t a campaign with an expiry date. It’s DCAD stacking another brick in Abu Dhabi’s design-capital ambitions, and Tiffany planting a flag in a market where cultural capital, not just retail footprint, is becoming the real currency. Advertising buys attention, but such collaboration buys a generation.
