Zulal Ut is an award winning Designer, with entrepreneurial skills. Born in Germany to Turkish immigrant parents, she began to support her family at a young age by assembling pens and helping her mother to stitch pullovers. In her early years, Zulal’s room was her canvas – everything was drawn, scribbled or handmade; from paintings on the wall, handmade dresses for her teddies or hanging paper sculptures from the ceiling. It was clear that she was creative. After heavy debate with her parents she persuaded her way out of studying law to follow her passion studying art and design, graduating with a Diploma in Communication Design (Dipl. Des. RSAK-GREY Worldwide).

She felt being home in a comfortable and safe place would limit her potential and that there just had to be more ‘outside the box’. She executed her dream and moved with only 100 Euro, a suitcase and a job, to a tiny, but fast growing island in the gulf of Siam. Indeed it sounds like a take out of a movie, but it got more dramatic when a Tsunami made landfall only a few hours after her arrival in 2004. In 2006, she found herself living in Bangkok and the military coup also did not test her resolve. These teasing omens could not make her turn back for home.

Cultivating tenacity, her portfolio bursts with the most prominent names of LTU, Four Seasons, Six Senses and the Holiday Inn. Zulal, who initially had to pay her way through university by selling shoes, clothes and delivering magazines, now represented executive clients and cultivated a strong long-term commitment over 10 years for one of the leading brands in the wellness industry. At the same time she developed her own brands through entrepreneurial projects such as an art publication and a jewellery brand. Together with a creative team and her passion for paper and ink she developed editorial content and artwork for topics in culture, style and activities. Fortune also favoured her as her correspondent had an interview with his holiness, the Dalai Lama, for one of her first publications. Her jewellery brand grew from out of her small atelier with a handful of fair trade silver, sourced from the Hill-tribes, to a brand which is now sold exclusively in luxury hotels such as the Conrad-Hilton, W-Hotel, Six Senses, Vana Belle by Starwood, Kamalaya and more.

Now her quest in Asia has been fulfilled, and no stones have been left unturned. The literal flipping of silver into gold was the grandest of dreams for her in Thailand, and now this vision has been complete. Cologne, her home, called her to return to her roots. Home she returned as both the creator and the creative, filled with the experiences from her journey so far.