Tyra Banks Instagram – Smize & Dream (@smizeanddream), the premium ice-cream brand launched by supermodel, television personality, producer, writer, and actor @tyrabanks, may have been founded only in 2021, but it’s a business that has been years in the making. You see, Smize & Dream is the result of Banks’ lifelong love for ice-cream, with her first memory of it being a hand-churned vanilla variety that her great-grandmother used to make for her when she was a child. Banks also remembers that as a schoolgirl, she and her mother would have a weekly ritual in which they’d get together, enjoy a bowl of ice-cream, and chat about their dreams and aspirations for the future. “Every Friday, it was ice-cream, and talking about dreams,” Banks recalls. “And so, for me, ice-cream is so nostalgic, and it connects to dreams.” Following its launch in Los Angeles, Smize & Dream has since gone on to grow across the US, and its first international outpost was recently announced to be here in the UAE. This has been through what Banks calls a “residency” at Brunch & Cake (@brunchandcake), a Dubai-headquartered all-day dining restaurant that has seen not only its popularity grow since its launch in 2019, but also its presence, with it now boasting of multiple locations in the UAE, with plans to expand across the MENA region and beyond. In a statement, Amjad Barakat (@amjadflip), co-founder and CEO of Innovision Holding, the company behind Brunch & Cake, said, “Our collaboration with Smize & Dream is our first monumental step towards making Brunch & Cake a global household name- and who better to start this journey with than icon and businesswoman Tyra Banks? Our brands align perfectly, and we’re excited to continue building the Brunch & Cake experience, now with a touch of Smize.” Meanwhile, Banks is hoping to lean further into her entrepreneurial persona. “There’s something that just makes me feel like runways and photo shoots and covers, all of that was nice, but I would love for that to be an asterisk on my legacy,” Banks says. “But the main thing [would be for people] to be like, ‘She’s an ice-cream entrepreneur. Do you know she 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘥 to be a model?'” Link in bio for the full story.