Haya Jarrar Looks Back on Motherhood in Her First London Exhibition

For nine days in September, a space at 14A Hay Hill in Mayfair hosted Romani Home's first presentation in London. Staged as part of London Design Festival and running from 12 to 20 September, While I Sat To Make Life introduced a new collection by the Dubai-based designer and creative director Haya Jarrar. The work drew on her experience of pregnancy and early motherhood, a period she has described as one that "softened, strengthened, broke, and rebuilt me all at once."

Portrait of Haya Jarrar.

Jarrar came to collectible design by way of fashion. After establishing her fashion label, Romani Ready, she opened Romani Home in 2024 as a 3,000-square-foot studio in Al Quoz, Dubai. In the UAE she is known for a bold aesthetic and has built a loyal celebrity following. The studio makes handmade, limited-edition pieces with avant-garde, organic forms, and Jarrar treats each object as an artwork.

The London collection comprised eight pieces. Jarrar built it around the contrasts she associates with motherhood and womanhood, such as vulnerability and power, or surrender and grounding. The materials carried those contrasts too, setting heavy elements against weightless ones and raw finishes against refined ones. She continued to work mainly in bronze and oak, with stone also featuring. Jarrar has spoken before about these materials holding memory, and she left the maker's hand visible in the finished pieces.

The Man Chair sat at the centre of the collection. Jarrar based it on the embrace of her husband, and its hand-carved oak legs were modelled directly on his own. The design recalls the view she often had while resting against him during her pregnancy. She intended the chair as a symbol of support and of a strength that holds without overpowering.

The Fluid Bench took its references from breath and water, as well as from the changing shape of a body in transition. Jarrar connected its form to the constant motion of motherhood and to the idea that balance comes from the ability to move and adapt. Taken together, the pieces formed what the studio described as a sculptural diary of this chapter in her life.

'Man Chair', While I Sat to Make Life - Romani Home - 2026, Image credit: Marco Kesseler.

'The Fluid Bench', While I Sat to Make Life - Romani Home - 2026, Image credit: Marco Kesseler.

Jarrar worked with the curator Anne-Laure Pingreoun-Lastro to shape the exhibition, which was conceived as an extension of Jarrar's own world. It departed from the format of a standard furniture presentation. The main intervention grew out of Jarrar's drawings of women's bodies. She cited Matisse and Anna Weyant among her references, and she was interested in pairing delicate line work with more visceral details. The drawings were translated into large-scale silk embroideries, handmade in Paris, which hung throughout the space and pooled onto the floor.

Scent formed part of the experience as well. Jarrar wanted a fragrance that felt sensual, feminine and slightly provocative. The result opened with saffron and coriander, moved through rose, jasmine and magnolia, and settled on a base of amber, musk, cedar and vetiver. Other elements, including organza, lighting and transparent displays, were developed with Jarrar so that the space reflected her visual language while keeping the collection at its centre.

In a statement released ahead of the opening, Jarrar explained how pregnancy had changed her view of the female body. "What had long been celebrated for its beauty revealed an even greater purpose," she said. She described the breast as becoming "the first source of nourishment, comfort, and life," and said that recognising this duality permanently altered the way she sees women.

With the exhibition now closed, While I Sat To Make Life stands as Romani Home's introduction to the London design scene. For Jarrar, the choice of city ultimately carried a kind of personal weight and she left us with her feelings that it felt right to make her London debut with this collection, in a city she considers her second hometown.