For years, Fatma lived inside a world ruled by numbers, structure and financial discipline. Then something inside her began asking a different question: what if success could feel more creative, more personal and more alive?
That question eventually took her from corporate finance to a sewing machine at home, from uncertainty to fashion entrepreneurship, and from burnout to building brands that connect fashion with wellness.
Today in Dubai, FBS is the founder and CEO behind Soltana Couture and FIERCE Activewear, two ventures born from very different chapters of her life but connected by one powerful idea: what people wear can influence how they feel, move and see themselves.
Leaving Numbers Behind for a Creative Life
The transition was not an obvious one.
Coming from a corporate finance background, Fatma had built a professional identity around numbers. Couture represented almost the opposite world. It was tactile, expressive and unpredictable.
But instead of waiting until she felt completely ready, she began at home with a sewing machine.
She taught herself the craft from scratch, learning the details of fashion creation through experience. Every stitch became part of an education that could not be found in a traditional corporate career.
In 2015, that experimentation became Soltana Couture, a prêt-à-couture brand that gave fatima a platform to turn her ideas into tangible designs.
It was more than a business launch. It was the beginning of a new identity.
When Burnout Changed the Direction of Her Story
Success, however, did not protect her from exhaustion.
The intensity of building a business eventually led Fatma to experience burnout. Instead of seeing that period only as a setback, she used it as a moment to reassess her lifestyle and priorities.
Then came sport.
What initially offered an escape from the pressure of everyday life gradually became a genuine passion. Exercise gave her a different relationship with energy, confidence and wellbeing.
The transformation was personal before it became entrepreneurial.
She began to see an opportunity to bring together two worlds that had shaped her life: fashion and wellness.
That realization became the foundation for FIERCE Activewear.
Building FIERCE From Personal Experience
FIERCE was not created simply to follow the growth of activewear.
The brand emerged from FBS’s own experience of discovering sport as a tool for transformation. Her vision was to create clothing that could accompany people as they worked toward becoming stronger versions of themselves.
That philosophy places empowerment at the center of the brand.
As founder and CEO, Fatma is building FIERCE around the belief that activewear should go beyond appearance. It should support movement, confidence and the feeling of being comfortable in one’s own skin.
The result is a business journey that combines fashion design, entrepreneurship, lifestyle and wellness rather than treating them as separate industries.
The Entrepreneur Mindset Behind Two Brands
Running two fashion ventures requires more than creativity.
It demands resilience, adaptability and the ability to move between different audiences and business challenges. Fatma ‘s journey from finance to fashion gave her an unusual combination of skills: the analytical discipline of corporate life and the creative instincts developed through years of design.
That combination has become part of her leadership approach.
She understands numbers, but she also understands emotion. She knows that a successful fashion brand needs a strong product, but also a compelling identity that customers can connect with.
In an increasingly competitive global fashion industry, that balance between branding, lifestyle and personal storytelling can become a powerful advantage.
A Vision That Goes Beyond Fashion
FBS’S ambition is not simply to grow two brands.
Her larger vision is to bridge fashion and wellness and create products that make people feel good as well as look good.
That mission is particularly relevant in Dubai, a global business and luxury lifestyle hub where fashion, fitness and personal wellbeing increasingly overlap.
For Fatma, entrepreneurship has become a form of personal expression. Soltana Couture represents the creative freedom she once searched for, while FIERCE represents the healthier and more active lifestyle she discovered after burnout.
Together, they tell a story about reinvention.
From Reinvention to Legacy
Perhaps the most compelling part of Fatma’s success story is that neither brand began with a perfectly mapped-out future.
One began with a desire to escape the confines of numbers and a sewing machine at home. The other emerged after a difficult personal chapter forced her to rethink what success meant.
That is what makes her entrepreneurial journey so human.
She did not abandon her past. She transformed it.
The financial discipline became business knowledge. The sewing machine became a fashion education. Burnout became a turning point. Sport became a lifestyle. And those experiences became the foundation for brands designed to inspire confidence and movement.
Today, Fatma continues to build at the intersection of fashion, entrepreneurship and wellness, with a vision that reaches beyond clothing.
Her story suggests that sometimes the most meaningful business growth begins when a person is brave enough to change the definition of success.
Follow Fatma Ben Soltane on Instagram at @fatoumabs and explore her professional journey on LinkedIn. Discover her brands through FIERCE Activewear and FIERCE Activewear MENA on Instagram.
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