The Woman Behind The House

Shay-Lee is a 24 years-old 
fashion designer, artist, and writer.

Creation, for her, was never a decision.
It was a language she was born into.

Before she knew how to explain herself,
she was already expressing,
through collages, drawings, fragments of words,
and delicate lingerie sketches
That filled the pages of her notebooks.

Shay-Lee studied lingerie design
at a private fashion school in Tel Aviv
and later continued her creative studies
in Polimoda, a fashion university based in Florence, Italy,
where she deepened her relationship
with art, fashion, and feeling.

The turning point was when she chose to stop everything and travel alone across Europe.
This journey became something else entirely.
A search for beauty, for sensation, truth,
and for the version of herself she knew existed,
but had not yet fully met.

Somewhere between those moments,
House of Saya began to take form.

Here are five intimate answers, in her own words. 

~

1. What made you start House of Saya? 
”House of Saya began as a vision, but not the kind you can clearly see.
It wasn’t a defined image, It was a feeling.
A strong emotional pull toward something that didn’t yet exist.

I first felt it around the age of 8,
when I was introduced to the world of burlesque and cabaret.
I saw these women in films…. Ornate, expressive, unapologetic.
Celebrating their bodies in such an artistic, almost sacred way.

Something in me just knew!
I was meant to create something that feels exactly like that.
On the body and in the mind.”

2. What does femininity mean to you? 
“Femininity, to me, is the freedom to be fully, unapologetically who you are.
It’s a wide spectrum of colors. A softness held within a structure of strength.
It’s moonlight. It’s the deep expression of your most honest desires.
It is what drives us to create beauty, love, life.

I believe femininity isn’t something you perform… 
It’s something you return to. Through the courage to let go of all the masks
you were once forced to wear.”


3. Where do you draw your inspiration from?
“Romance.
Flowers.
Rituals.
Women.
Music.
God.
The five senses.
Meditations.
Books.
European cultures and architecture I wandered through alone.
And the time I spend with myself… in stillness.”

4. What do you hope she feels when she wears House of Saya?
“I want her to feel sacred. 
To feel worthy of creating small rituals for herself.
To feel feminine, sensual, desired. 
and mostly… I want her to feel real… “

5. What shaped your approach as a designer? 
”One of the most defining moments for me happened in Paris.
I was at a cabaret performance 
and for the first time, I saw it.
The vision that had lived in my mind suddenly standing right in front of me,
moving in slow, sensual steps.
In that moment, all I wanted was to capture it forever!
And to give other women that same sense of freedom.

I truly believe fashion has the power to do that.”