One chance encounter, two unlikely partners and a new luxury fashion house
A Raleigh contractor walks into a Paris hotel lobby—and walks out with a future fashion partner. Sounds like the setup to a joke, but for local entrepreneur John Cooper, a chance encounter with luxury designer Islam Dadov two years ago ultimately led to the launch of fashion house DADOV at Paris Fashion Week this fall. Call it fate, divine intervention or a happy coincidence—but Cooper chalks it up to his late grandma.
“My grandmother is still a very big presence in my life, I pray to her almost every day,” says Cooper, who founded Raleigh-based Cooper Tacia General Contracting and Cooper Charitable Foundation. “I felt like she put him in front of me, and I’m supposed to help this person.”
It was Dadov’s backstory that immediately resonated with Cooper. Raised in poverty in Mozdok, Russia, Dadov lost his father as a child and later his stepfather in a bombing, leaving him to help support his mother and two sisters by selling individual cigarettes.
Despite those hardships, Dadov put himself through university before moving to Moscow to work at Zara. His talent for visual merchandising caught his boss’ attention, leading to a career spanning Gucci and Dior across Milan, Barcelona and Paris.
“For me, I don’t know anything about fashion, but I got a person in front of me who speaks six languages and he’s working for the biggest fashion houses in the world—I don’t have to know much about what he does to know that he must be good,” says Cooper, noting that Dadov had previously tried to start his own fashion house in Russia, but the war in Ukraine led to trade embargoes that inhibited him from getting materials and forced him to shut it down.
Cooper’s conversation with Dadov—and the fact he wanted to start another fashion house of his own in Paris but lacked the funding—stuck with him, and three months later, he reached out with an offer to invest. After turning him down twice, Dadov eventually accepted—and the DADOV fashion house was born.
And the house’s name is more than eponymous—it’s legacy: Dadov adopted his late stepfather’s surname as a teenager so he could share a name with his younger sisters.
“As a child, I was told that creating and designing was not meant for boys, so I buried that passion for years,” recalls Dadov. “Launching DADOV in Paris is my way of coming full circle, allowing myself to build what I was meant to create—dedicated to the strength of each member of my family.”
Raleigh, too, played a role beyond Cooper’s partnership. Dadov traveled to the City of Oaks to develop early handbag concepts with industrial designer Cata Chopra, creating paper prototypes that were sent to Italy and refined into the final designs.
Fast-forward to the Fashion Week debut, Cooper says it “went really well,” garnering attention from fashion insiders, followers, media and prospective customers—even securing a few initial sales.
“It’s amazing to think all of this started with a random conversation between two strangers in a hotel lobby,” emphasizes Cooper, who established the house’s office with Dadov on Paris’ famed luxury shopping street Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris, about a block from Hermès’ and Chanel’s HQs. “It makes me so happy for him.”
As for what’s next? The pair has already started scouting storefronts in Paris—which Cooper will, naturally, oversee the construction of—hinting additional drops every three or so months, with plans for clothing and shoes down the line. And so if Cooper is right about fate, this may be only the beginning.
THE BAGGAGE: Three bags, three backstories. Meet the debut DADOV collection.
ASTER: Soft suede meets sculptural design in a silhouette inspired by its namesake flower.
BELLA: Dadov’s first, the Swarovski crystal-bedecked handbag is named for his niece.
NEIGE: French for “snow,” this sleek leather bag evokes the elegance of a fresh snowfall.
Add a little spice to your life—and save someone else’s.
Imagine all the flavors of your fave episode of Hot Ones—sans the spicy questions and sub in sauce on a mission.
Drenching Raleigh with purpose—and soul-satisfying spicy sauce—is Cole Fungaroli, founder of East Coast Sauces. The Raleigh-based brand’s collection of four hot sauces has major pepper power, and while the spice is nice, it’s the company’s true holy grail that takes the heat.
Photo courtesy of East Coast Sauces
Bottle by bottle, the not-so-cool bone broth-based condiments contribute to the fight to end human trafficking at both local and national levels. “I can bring people together through flavor,” says the founder of his saucy passion—“but I wanted it to be for something.”
After learning about the prevalence of human trafficking, Fungaroli stood on the belief that even a small company can make a dent in this critical issue, and decided East Coast Sauces wouldn’t confine its goals to just the flavoring of food.
“I felt like I’ve been blind my whole life—not noticing human trafficking is not what you see in the movies,” emphasizes Fungaroli. “It’s actually a lot smaller and a lot harder to detect.” Detecting and protecting are 10% of each spicy sauce sold, benefiting local and national organizations fighting human trafficking—with $2K+ to agencies like Shield North Carolina in 2024 alone.
And if the name hasn’t clued you in, the four sauces bear the East Coast area codes behind the inspiring locales. See: the 919 Killer Mambo sauce, a North-meets-South mashup of flavors Fungaroli sees reflected in Oak City culture.
Tapping in for the “a little dab will do” mentality, Fungaroli purposely pulled back the heat in his sauces, designing for generous use without tummy troubles and hoping spice connoisseurs will use them to the max. Don’t mind if we do! eastcoastsauces.com
Back to Your Roots: New luxe elixir looks to restore your confidence one follicle at a time.
Shedding strands can be a real confidence killer. And with doomscrolling spewing seemingly endless suggestions, quick fixes and remedies ad nauseam all vying for your attention, the struggle is real.
It’s a struggle with which Chastity Sullivan is deeply familiar. After a bout with COVID, the Raleighite was met with her perimenopause era and those luscious locks started clocking out—giving her pillow “stranded” fur coat vibes and rendering her shower drain a never-ending hair trap.
As would anyone experiencing the slow-fade, Sullivan checked all the boxes for a reboot—from hormone doctors and supplements to serums and red light therapy in an effort to rejuvenate her hair growth. She was specifically on the hunt for a fix that would detox her scalp, spark regrowth and strengthen her hair follicles, but every oil and blend she tried came up short.
But as they say, adversity breeds invention. Enter her handbatched hair oil. “I started to do a little research and realized there were essential oils and different types of natural ways I can go about trying to fix the problem, as opposed to just covering it up,” says Sullivan.
Photo by Contone Media, courtesy of regener8
So, in typical DIY fashion, she combined her know-how with her husband’s entrepreneurial spirit, and, a few individual test runs and trials by friends and family later, regener8 was born. “I noticed a huge difference, just in the way my hair felt—the shedding in the hair—and then within a few months I started to notice the little hairs growing in the front where I was losing my hair,” reflects Sullivan.
Now, with a focus on keeping things local (though a shamp or conditioner down the line isn’t out of the question), she’s sharing the blend in hopes of helping others find a permanent solution to hair loss. The oil is a combination of high-quality natural and plant-based ingredients—think argan, turmeric, avocado, lavender, castor and tea tree—applied directly to the scalp.
While women are at the forefront of regener8’s mission, its benefits leave no head unturned. “I am here,” she shares. “I want to go on this journey with people because I’ve been there.” And looks like now, she’s rewriting the narrative—one drop at a time. Exclusively at ELLA Collective, regener8.co
