By Yasmine Shihata

Kylie Minogue is definitely one of the sweetest celebrities I’ve ever met. She is genuine, bubbly, friendly and polite; even when we picked her up at the airport after a long, long flight. From the moment we met her at the airport, she was incredibly down to earth and cordial – even when our photographer wouldn’t stop taking photos of her. In fact right after she gave him a demure “enough” sign with her hands, she agreed to pose for a picture with him. And even though she arrived late at night, she was fresh faced and easy going, clad in a grey sweater and sky high Yves Saint Laurent heels. There is no attitude, just a very feminine and very pretty woman – whose looks defy her  42 years of age. You can tell she is a woman who has made it to the top the right way, by sheer hard work, graciousness and appreciating everyone who has helped her along the way. It was immediately clear, this was a woman who was not only loved by her fans, but by her team as well. This was a woman who lived out her life and her career on her own terms, not what the public and media expected of her. A true inspiration for independent women everywhere.

Kylie Minogue

As we approached the Mena House Hotel, where she was booked to stay, I was still nervous. The day before she arrived, Kylie’s security had inspected her suite and stated it was not up to her standards, despite its vast size and unique appeal. So the day of her arrival we worked with the hotel to make her suite as welcoming as possible, and as she slowly opened the door to her suite, the hotel staff and I nervously stood behind her, waiting for her reaction. After all, maybe she was just being polite at the airport and perhaps we would find out she was a difficult diva now? So as we all held our breath, she walked into the suite took a look around and exclaimed “it’s lovely, I love it! This would be a great location for a photo shoot, right?”

The minute I heard those words half of the enormous stress prior to her arrival just evaporated. And it was then that I knew the next 24 hours would actually be fun, as Kylie’s ease and graciousness makes it a pleasure to work with her and be around her.

With her warm deep blue eyes and her quick and easy laugh, Kylie makes every situation just a little bit lighter and more fun. And the next day we saw her fun sense of adventure come to life as we took her to the Sphinx and the Pyramids for a private tour with none other than Dr. Zahi Hawass.  And although Dr. Hawass usually takes celebrities up close to the Sphinx, then explains the history of the Pyramids from afar, Kylie was so intrigued by the history of the land, she was eager to see the Pyramids up close, and climb up inside them, despite the sweltering heat. True stamina for a true star!

Later that day, after event set-up drama and the inevitable delays that happen in Egypt were over, I was finally getting ready for the big night and my interview with Kylie. Despite my best efforts, I was running late for Kylie; quite late actually (sad but true). And even though I would have been a diva had I been in her shoes, when we finally sat down to have our interview she was reassuring and welcoming, asking me if everything was okay and immediately making me feel at ease.

Too good to be true, right? Well I hate to disappoint your image of temper tantrumed celebs, but this star is actually that sweet! Still sceptical? Well read on and get up close and personal with Kylie, in her own words….

Welcome to Cairo Kylie…

Thanks so much! (she pauses, then looks into our video camera ) Okay, Yasmine is hosting this incredible big party for eniGma and we planned this interview kind of forgetting the DJ is going to be warming up in the background so hopefully you’ll be able to hear some of this.

Okay, so let’s talk about tonight, this is your first trip and performance  in  Egypt right?

Yes!

What were your feelings before coming to Egypt?

A lot of excitement! I guess for any country where it’s my first visit the unknown is appealing. But coming to Egypt is especially special. It’s so embedded in our history. I remember learning about Egypt in high school from the encyclopedias lined up in the library and it’s just amazing that now I’m actually here, performing right in front of the Pyramids! It has completely exceeded any expectations I had.

Often Western celebrities are afraid to come to the Middle East and they have this notion that it’s going to be very conservative and difficult. Did you ever have these kinds of expectations?

To be honest we did, and we wanted to check with you that my show would be okay as it was.  We asked if we had to modify anything and when your answer was “no, come as you are!” we were thrilled as that always works best for us.

And has Egypt been welcoming to you?

Oh, just beyond. The people have been so warm and so welcoming. We’ve only been here for not even 24 hours and I can honestly say it’s been incredible. But everyone seems so nonchalant about the Pyramids! When we were doing our sound check before with the band and the dancers, people were just walking around in a daze and we kind of looked at each other saying “Okay, we’re actually by the Pyramids!”. So tonight I have the full moon in front of me, the Pyramids and Sphinx behind me, this beautiful setup that you’ve created all around me…It’s almost like I don’t know where to look! The place feels mystical already, so it’s been a really breathtaking experience.

Tell us bout your visit to the Pyramids with  Dr. Zahi Hawass today?

Dr. Zahi gives off this presence, charisma and the kind of knowledge and authority that makes him legendary. To actually stand at the paws of the Sphinx was just… I can’t find the words; I’ve said incredible and amazing far too much today but there has been a lot of that! It was really an honour to be chatting with him and to try to absorb every moment of it. But you didn’t warn me about climbing up!

You went inside the pyramids?

Yeah we went all the way to the top!

How was that?

It was tough. All of us were pretty shiny by the time we got back down. But it was mind blowing!

You heard today that you are the last artist to perform in front of the Sphinx. Is this something that’s intimidating or does it make it more exciting for you?

Not intimidating but definitely more exciting. And a lot more important. It’s a very important night for me as it’s my first performance in Egypt. And in addition to it being my first time here, it’s the final performance at this venue, so it’s a truly big honour. It doesn’t make me more nervous it’s just that I’m just feeling it here today (she says as she puts her hands on her heart). And I’m kind of awestruck. I know I’m not explaining that very well, but that’s where I felt it, here (pointing to her heart). It was very powerful; you must have had that with a lot of visitors who come.

Yes- for our fifth anniversary we brought Bryan Adams to sing at the same location and he  just kept on performing, which was truly fabulous for him and for us! He said it was the most amazing feeling because as you said to look back and see this majestic ambiance is quite breath taking.

Yeah it truly is.

You have a lot of fans in Egypt and the Arab World and a lot of them admire you not only for your music, but also for your changing looks. Every time you have a new CD, there’s a new concept, mood and image. A lot of people are curious to know how hard it is to continually reinvent yourself or is that just part of the job?

Well, I suppose if you’re talking about albums, then there’s always a case of reinvention, because you have a certain look that accompanies the sound and the feel of the album. But as for my personal style, it’s evolving as I go through the years. Fashion changes all the time so it’s something that I enjoy. At certain times it’s a challenge, and certain times I’d like to just go down the street in my track pants. But then again, if I didn’t have these opportunities; if I didn’t have this kind of delightful career, I think I would drive everyone crazy! If you’re a performer and love to do it presentation is part of that. So I get to live out my schoolgirl fantasies of dressing up!

This dress is by Lebanese designer, Zuhair Murad, do you wear Arab designers?

Yeah, I have worn a dress of his once before. In fact it was very similar!

Are there any particular brands you prefer or styles that you lean towards?

Well I have my regular favourite designers that I know and have worked with a lot over the years. Jean-Paul Gaultier, Docle & Gabbana and Chanel. But since I was about 14 I’d go to my local neighbourhood boot sale market and rummage through. There’s such pleasure mixing and matching designer clothing and labels with just a piece of tat that you’ve found somewhere odd. I have stuff in my wardrobe that has been in there for 20 plus years and I still use them.

I am sure you have a pretty amazing wardrobe…

It’s very extensive but I’ve donated all of my costumes from my tours and work costumes to the Performing Arts museum in Melbourne. So they own them and store them and they are loaned out for different exhibitions. I definitely cleared a bit of space by doing that!

There was an exhibition of your outfits in London as well…

Yes at the Victoria and Albert museum in London. I still can’t believe that; it was just exceptional.

Who are some of your personal style icons?

Actuall we have them here in my dressing room (pointing to paintings) Marilyn Monroe! And there’s Audrey Hepburn! I mean the classic ladies are amazing, they will never go out of style, out of fashion. They are classic for all time and we can only aspire to be anything like that. I also like anything that’s art-deco, so I love a lot of the fashion, looks and the ladies from those days as well. As for modern icons, Sarah Jessica Parker is fantastic!

When you were starting out was there someone that you looked up to that inspired you to get into music and to want to be a performer?

Very early on it was Grease the musical. There was Olivia Newton-John and I was about eight or nine and that was IT, Grease was it!  I don’t know, perhaps it was what High School Musical was few years ago to kids, but probably more because we didn’t have access to so much then and Grease was the first thing that I became obsessed with. I used to also play my dad’s Donna Summer’s record Bad Girls and sing along. I didn’t quite know what I was singing about but all of that pop music from the 70s inspired me. Then I really got into pop music in a more educative way as a teenager. I was really into the New Romantics and a lot of music coming from London, so it’s amazing that now I’ve ended up there.

And then you became famous very young…

I started acting when I was 11, but I wouldn’t say that I was famous until I had a part in the Australian hit drama Neighbours.

You were about 19 then so that must have been an overnight crazy experience!

I was 19 yes, but I was just happy to have a job! The history of Neighbours is well known, as it started on one channel then after a year all the channels picked it up and I joined about three months after that. Now it’s been going for 20 year. It’s amazing! There, I said it again! Amazing (she laughs)! After all, it was part of the beginnings of my career.

The last part of our interview is the eniGma questionnaire….

Name five words to describe yourself.

Oh I hate these questions… okay I will do it. Indecisive, loyal, funny, searching and loving.

What qualities do you admire most in people?

I have to say honesty.

What qualities do you dislike most in people?

Arrogance and incompetence.

Okay, the next question might already have happened to you but we usually ask everyone, so here it is:  if there was a biography written about your life, what would you like to name it?

Oh lord! It could be called “Ten Minutes Everybody,” because that’s what my manager always says before the show to say he is starting the countdown. Random, right? I am sure I’ll think of something better than that as soon as we finish this interview,  but there you go!

If there was a movie made about this book, who would you like to play your character?

I have no idea, that’s really hard!

I guess in your case it would be you!

I’d need a really soft focus for the young years! (She laughs)

Last question, what is your ultimate idea of fulfilment?

To have peace of mind. I am going to leave it at that. Peace of mind because that will cover the situation you’re in with your family, with your career with anything. So yeah, peace of mind and feeling  good (she smiles).

Thank you so much Kylie, I’ll leave you now to get ready for your big show….

I really can’t wait… let’s bring it on!

By Hassan Hassan

Last summer audiences across Egypt queued up to watch their favourite funny boy Ahmed Mekky in Teer Enta – the Arabic adaptation of Bedazzled. But then a funny thing happened. A young woman with big talent stole the show with one of the most hilarious and perfectly pulled off performances in recent memory. Ever since, Donia Samir Ghanem has Arab audiences enthralled, enamoured and excited to see what she’ll come upwith next. High on the success of yet another summer blockbuster with Mekky, a hit Ramadan series and an Etisalat ad campaign in which she somehow manages to steal the spotlight from legends like Yousra and Ezza Abou Ouf, eniGma pinned down the rising starlet for an exclusive interview and shoot…

Donia Samir Ghanem Art Directed & Styled by Maissa Azab, Photographed by Khaled Fadda shot on location for eniGma Magazine

Teer Enta – 2009’s biggest summer blockbuster – might just be my favourite Arabic movie of all time. It’s one of those films I can watch repeatedly and the joke never gets old. It’s the type of film that immediately becomes a cult classic; a movie that transcends class, society and even (forgive the hyperbole) Egyptian filmmaking. For an entire summer it lauded over the box-office, pushing other movies off the cinema listings in an attempt to meet the unprecedented demand that was queuing, literally, around the block. Not bad for a local rip-off of a sub-par Hollywood movie (Bedazzled). And, of course, one of the movie’s major forces was its leading lady Donia Samir Ghanem.

Playing multiple characters with a subtlety and comedic timing that belied her limited silver screen experience, she not only stole the show, she succeeded in stealing the spotlight from the movie’s supposed ‘real’ star – slapstick maestro Ahmed Mekky. From the spoilt teenager hanging out on the North Coast to the over-enthused girl behind the makeup counter, she naughtily nailed each hilarious character, throwing a super-smart satirical spotlight on various segments of Egyptian society.  She wasn’t just the perfect leading leady… she was seven of them.

So for the first time in my journalistic career, I am going to an interview harbouring a genuine sense of excitement. And, intriguingly, everyone I know is excited as I am. My sister instructs me to hug her, my colleagues are all jealous and all of my best friends tell me to send her their regards. After all Ghanem has that je nais se quois that makes audiences feel it’s their friend up on the screen. Like a host of Hollywood stars before her – think Julia Roberts, Drew Barrymore and Meg Ryan – Donia is sweet and sexy in equal doses; the kind of girl you’d have a blast with but have no problems taking home to mum.

We meet on a late Friday night at the photographer’s studio in Mohandessin. Now I must confess, I’m not very forward with the celebrity set; shy to run up to them and introduce myself. I usually wait by the sidelines as they happily ignore me. Often, this works to my benefit. I get to play the voyeur, catching them unaware, scoping out the scene and studying them in their in their element. (I call it professional journalism; my editor would call it lazy). So I sit on a sofa in the corner and try to sneak glances at Donia getting her hair done. She meets my eye and does the unthinkable. She smiles. Caught completely off guard I smile back. And then she does something really crazy for the world of celebrity. She giggles. I die.

Call me cynical, call me jaded, but this isn’t something you expect from a celebrity. This whole down to earth and smiling business is never par for the course. She is Egyptian show business royalty after all; heir to both comedic and dramatic props from not one but both parents. Her father Samir Ghanem is the Egyptian answer to Peter Sellers and her mother Dalal Abdel Aziz is one of Egyptian cinema’s premier leading ladies. I was expecting at least some bravado, if not a full on diva behaviour, from one of Egypt’s hottest starlets.

Teer Enta may have catapulted Donia to super stardom, but, unbeknownst to many; she’s been playing parts and paying her acting dues for some time. She worked on a slew of series and played supportive roles in a number of movies before she got her big break. Following dramatic roles in Man Atlaq Al Rosas Yala Hend Allam (2005), and a little known sitcom called Cafe Chino (2006), she made her big screen debut in Shara 18 (2007). This was followed by Cabaret (2008) – a movie that made audiences sit up and pay attention to her. In Cabaret she played a destitute girl from the wrong side of town that runs away from a sexually abusive stepfather. The character considers her options in an illicit Egyptian nightclub and is met with one misfortune after the next, culminating in a gang rape. It’s all very dramatic and comes complete with a huge ensemble cast and sociological analysis. Cabaret is a fascinating, secluded universe replete with backstabbing, corruption, failed dreams and disappointments and Donia is surprisingly in her element. She played the part almost effortlessly and made it relatable. “Cabaret gave me the chance to work with some of the best people in the business,” she recalls. “That’s something I always look for in any project. To work with people I can learn from and who can help me grow; not just as an actress but as a person. And Cabaret was where I truly gained my acting chops.”

At this point, my excitement is starting to kill my very limited Arabic skills. So I let the English go on full force and apologize for it profusely. In my limited celebrity experience, this usually upsets them more than anything else. She laughs and says it’s cute. She speaks English, French and Arabic and starts to tell me all about university. “It was very important for me to study and have that whole experience. I studied mass communications because I wanted to understand as much as I could from this business.”

Work is her core. She isn’t being flighty and evasive, but everything we talk about comes back to a project that she has worked on, is working on or wants to work on. She’s steadily coming into herself as an actress and that is where all of her focus lies.

This summer stars in the blockbuster hit La Tarago We La Istislam, and she’s currently cooking up a storm in the fantastically funny Ramadan series El Kabeer Awy. “With La Tarago, I didn’t want to come back with an insane character,” she says. “I wanted her to be a typical leading lady. It’s more of a supporting role than a starring one. I never want to be typecast. I want to do it all.” Mekky and her have seemingly become something of a silver screen duo, a co-dependent comedic tour de force catapulting each other to stardom. “I love working with Mekky and Ahmed el Guindy,” she says. “Their new company Bird Eye is a testament to how things should be working in this industry. They know what it means to work as a team and value it above it everything else.”

Of course, there is life beyond Mekky. She’s currently working on two new projects. The first sees her star alongside heartthrob Ahmed Ezz in a Khaled el Marei directed movie; the other with rising star Asser Yassin in a romantic comedy directed by fellow showbiz heir Mariam Abou Ouf. Both movies are being directed by new talent, helping Donia and her peers slowly transform a movie industry that’s long been dominated by the same established superstars. “I want to work with as many people as possible and try out as many different things,” she says. “But girl’s roles are all the same in Egypt, which really kills me. Yet I can’t just sit at home, I need to ride this wave. In Egypt we have a problem with what the audience expects and what the producers think they want. We see something succeed and we stick to it; there are no new ideas. Mekky spent forever trying to find the right scripts and projects. So with Teer Enta, we had no choice but to take a foreign idea and put our own mark on it. Screenwriters are lazy; and most people in the industry lack drive and ambition. I was also planning on releasing an album but all the songs here exactly the same! The industry is lazy. People have to start working harder.”

“The other problem we have is that everyone wants to be a star; they want to stand-out, usually to the detriment of their co-stars or co-workers. We don’t have a team culture in this country and it will bring us down. Yet we have a lot of talented people who need the chance to start breaking the mould.”

Happy to expound at length about the highs, the lows and the challenges of the movie industry, when it comes to questions about her personal life, Donia is elusive. When I touch on the rumours of a romance with Mekky, she looks at me and laughs shyly.

Any man in your life?

“Mafeesh.”

I feel horrible pushing the subject, mainly because no man likes to see a pretty girl squirm. But she does have an idea of her who her ideal man is… and he’s got very big shoes to fill. “I want a man like my dad. He loves us so much and treats all of us with such respect. The one thing I can’t compromise is a sense of humour. I need a funny man. I could die if he was boring… actually, he would die. We’re all funny, so the guy that comes in to my family has to be funny!”

So what does the busiest girl in Egyptian show business do when she isn’t on set? “I read a lot,” she says. “I read about meditation and anything that has to do with relationships. The chemistry and psychology of couples etc, as I feel it helps in my acting. Even meditation makes a major difference and helps with the imagination. Getting to the point of zero thoughts is not easy; I’ve only done it a few times but it really helps with everything.”

It’s now almost two in the morning. Her call on set of El Kabeer Awy the next day has been pushed till 11 am, so she sits curled up on the couch and tries to teach me the many accents she does so well. I’m about to wrap up, but to my surprise she looks at me and says, “No, but I was having so much fun!’ This may just be the key to her phenomenal success. Whatever she’s doing, Donia Samir Ghanem is having fun. And we’re all invited to join in…

By Omnia Zaied

Superstar Angham is set to shake up things up with a sexy new sound and an even edgier new look. For the first time in the region, eniGma presents Angham as never before…

Angham

As one of the region’s most enduring singing sensations, Angham has decided to experiment with a whole new sound, look and direction. And she’s hoping to act as a catalyst for the rest of the music industry in the process.  Not because she needs to, but simply because she can. Having parted ways with Rotana productions and joining forces with renowned music producer Hassan El Shafei and creative image consultants, Mohamed Abbas and Ahmed Fahmy, she’s set to shake things up with a seriously hot new dance album Mahadesh Yehasebny (Nobody Judge Me), released this month.

Angham knows she’s talented, she knows people have admired her sound for years, but she’s never taken it for granted. The music industry has taught her better than that. She’s been around for long enough (an incredible 19 incredible albums) to have seen and done it all.  Even before she landed on the music scene 1987, she’d absorbed a wealth of experience through Mohamed Soliman – a famous singer and composer. “I built my audience over two decades. I’ve been there, done that and now I have the luxury to enjoy myself and have some fun by trying out new things,” she says. “Do you know why we still listen to Abdel Halim Hafez? It’s because he was ahead of his time. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve been doing this for one year or ten. It’s all about making a name for yourself by trying everything out.”

Mahadesh Yehasebny is so different that’s it hard to define it as an ‘album’ Its more o an extended LP with three original songs, Laialy (composed by El Shafei), Mahadesh Yehasebny and Aisha Hala, as well as two remixes.

“It’s just five tracks, because when you come to think about it, why have ten mediocre songs when you can have five amazing ones?” she says.

“I wanted the whole thing to have an electro-retro theme,” adds her new producer Hassan El Shafei.

Of course it’s risky business ditching one of the region’s biggest and most prestigious record companies in favour of an independent start-up label. But Angham is armed with security that comes with superstardom and an unwavering faith in El Shafei. “He is an artist in the real sense of the word; he knows what it means to deal with another artist.”

As El Shafei explains, “I’ve been working in the field for a while as an arranger and didn’t have a say in the look, publicity or image of the singers I was dealing with. So they’d end up looking unprofessional, at least to me. That’s why I started my own label, to do it my way from A to Z.”

The albums striking sound comes courtesy of a host of the country’s brightest music talents. The roster of credits include composers Karim Boghdady and Ihab Abdel Wahed, and lyricist Amir Teama. “In Egypt we seem to be stuck singing about love, hate and betrayal,” says Angham. “But there’s more to life, and very few singers pay attention to this here. This album is a big step in that direction.

Of course a sexy new sound demands an even sexier new image.  “It has never been easy for me to change my look,” she says. “But you’d be surprised what a difference changing a haircut or makeup does!” Her new team spent days poring over the album to come up with a look that would speak volumes on behalf of the music. “At first I was worried she’d hate it,” says creative consultant Mohamed Abbas. “But she loved it!”

“I always have a problem with Arab stars trying so hard to create an image that doesn’t really suit them or their music,” adds Ahmed Fahmy.  “We wanted a look that fits her. One that she feels and looks comfortable in. And she was very accommodating.”

And it’s not just about the new look or the new music. It’s about the spirit and attitude of a super star willing to take a risk. She’s lending her name and brand to a group of creative young men who she has faith will do her justice. It’s a fantastic example to set for an otherwise stagnant star industry.  “We’ve got to stop being afraid of change and afraid of how other people will react. You’ve got to put yourself out there, do something new and try your best. No one has the right to judge you.”

By Dalia Awad

Once an engineer, now a green guru aiming to revolutionise design in Egypt, Hala Saleh is a green pioneer in Egypt. Enigma’s Dalia Awad meet’s the globe-trotting mother-of-two and finds out just how she’s transformed her life…

Hala Saleh Art Directed & Styled by Perihan Kharama, Photographed by Adham Mostafa shot on location for eniGma Magazine

With both brains and beauty, Hala Saleh is an inspiration to working mothers. Not only is she launching a new design firm, creating some of the most illustrious design projects across the country, she’s also introducing a new concept of eco-friendly interior design and architecture to Egypt. And she manages to also be a mother of two, a dedicated wife, an exercise fiend and a social butterfly. How, you ask? “I love a good challenge!” she says.

Formerly a mechanical engineer, Saleh has never been afraid to get her hands dirty. Whether she’s taking her kids to Azhar Park, dancing the night away at Tamarai or trekking the globe to source luxury recycled materials for her green projects, Saleh knows how to balance her life. She’s a passionate, determined woman who loves life and is enjoying it to the fullest. But it wasn’t always this way. Starting her career in the oil and gas industry, Saleh got caught up in the serious business of engineering and energy. “I hated every day of my life,” she remembers, “I was doing well, and I was progressing but I just wasn’t enjoying myself.” Though she was always naturally inclined towards mathematics and the sciences, the problem solver in her finally met with her creative spirit when she did the architecture and interior design of her home, as well as her parent’s home. “It came organically. From that, friends and colleagues began to ask me to design their homes and I realised I had a passion for this,” she explains.

Since then, Saleh has shown no signs of slowing down. While many who discover a new passion later in life consider it a missed opportunity or, at most, take a few courses to become more acquainted with the subject, Saleh went above and beyond. Doing things the hard way has never scared Saleh so when it came to taking her design career seriously, she went back to school in Houston, Texas; to one of the most prestigious design schools in the world. And started her academic career from scratch. “I’m a firm believer that education is key,” she explains. Graduating top of her class, she remembers things finally falling into place. “I got a sense of understanding; an appreciation about what design really means,” she says. “With a husband and two boys, it was extremely difficult. It was a nightmare actually! But I had a dream and I worked so hard to achieve it – nothing stood in my way.

“I’m a designer that looks at interiors from a design point of view and not simply a decorative one. That vital difference is lacking in Egypt, despite the industry growing,” she says. Making her mark in a highly competitive environment, Saleh went on to win several prestigious prizes and even designed the new interior for the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Houston. The depth of her knowledge combined with her creative flair saw her career sky rocket in the US. “I was on a mission to find a benchmark to measure what good design really is,” she says. Since her return to Egypt, however, she’s the one who has been setting the standards. “To be able to do something different, you have to know what’s out there. After spending a lot of time really getting to grips with the subject, I found my specialty and signature style,” she says.

Now, environmentally friendly is not really a term a lot Arabs are familiar with. Sure, we know what it means, but it’s not often you see any action taken. Saleh plans to change all that and show exactly how stylish sustainability can be. “During my time in Houston I got to work with some of the biggest names in the field. I began to realise how important the interaction between design and the environment was,” she explains, “As a designer, I am responsible not only for the aesthetics but the surroundings as well.” Her philosophy as a LEAD (Leadership for Environment and Development) accredited designer means she’s ready to revolutionise architecture and design in the Middle East – with a green edge. Cutting no corners, she’s become an expert at utilising natural light to save energy, using local resources to cut costs and sourcing recycled and recyclable projects to reduce emissions. Every home, office or building she gets her hands on is efficient, reliable and undeniably beautiful. Where form and function meet, you can be sure Saleh is behind it.

“Egypt, and Cairo specifically, is so chaotic, with traffic, pollution, noise…many of my designs are created to remedy that,” she says enthusiastically. Indeed, her latest project on the North Coast is a stunning celebration of serenity. Whites and grays come together in straight lines and smooth surfaces (“I was so tired of the disorder of the city!”). It’s obvious that her problem-solving abilities and innate logic haven’t left her since her engineering days, but they’re now fused with ingenuity and a passion to introduce a much-needed culture of environmental awareness. Launching The Design Firm next month in Designopolis, Saleh and her team are working hard to transform the way we see design. “People here haven’t really grasped the idea of ‘green’ yet, but even if I’m working on a LEAD certified project, I try my best to use green principles,” she says.

A woman on a mission, Hala Saleh is aware that she has still has a lot to accomplish. “Challenges are my thing. I know I can always do something better, something new. I need challenges,” she says. But to everyone else, she’s done it all and she’s living the dream. A mother, socialite, career woman and pioneer, Saleh wears many hats. And with her plans to make our environment safer, she’s a role model for Arab women.

By Sunita Rappai

Growing up in Ecuador, neither Goya Gallagher Sawiris nor her best friend Margarita Andrade could have imagined they’d end up in Egypt one day, with a flourishing business that also helps underprivileged women support themselves. Enigma’s Sunita Rappai finds out why first appearances can be deceptive…

Goya Gallagher Sawiris & Margarita Andrade; Art Directed & Styled by Perihan Kharma, Photographed by Sherry Nabih shot on location for eniGma Magazine

As I drive up the slip road to meet Goya Gallagher Sawiris at her 6^th OF October home, I’m confused. On one side is a fairly opulent-looking mansion – striking yellow, spacious, with a huge entrance – the kind of place you might expect your average business mogul’s wife to reside. On the other is a large flat, one-storey block with huge shutters, which looks a little bit like a warehouse.  Asking one of the men outside for directions, it turns out that this unassuming brick building is, in fact, the Sawiris’ home.

If it ever needed reinforcing, this made it clear: appearances can and often are, deceptive. It may not look like much on the outside but inside, this stunning, beautifully-decorated home seems to go on forever. We’re led into a vast living area with full-length glass patio doors, looking out on to pristine manicured gardens and an elegant pool area, dotted with rattan chairs and couches. Inside there’s a colourful, eclectic mix of styles – from Japanese-style sliding doors to striking South American artwork; an homage to Gallagher Sawiris’s Ecuadorian roots. Everything is immaculate and understated, in impeccable taste.

We’re here to meet Goya Gallagher Sawiris, wife of Samih Sawiris – legendary hotelier, creator of El Gouna and one-third of the famed multi-billion dollar Orascom dynasty – and her best friend and business partner, Ecuadorian Margarita Andrade, wife of high flying German lawyer, Florian Amareller. The lives of these two women have been remarkably intertwined – they grew up together in Ecuador but both eventually fell in love with Egypt then married and settled here. Ten years ago, they created Malaika together, a top-of-the-line range of luxury cotton garments and home furnishings; hand made and embroidered by poor Egyptian women who are also trained by the company. It’s a remarkable project which has provided employment and opportunities for scores of underprivileged women.

And despite their glamorous appearances (they emerge for the photo shoot looking every bit the high society wives they are), both women are strikingly understated.

Andrade, it turns out, is a jeans and T-shirt kind of gal who generally never wears make-up. Gallagher Sawiris adores fashion and confesses to a fetish for heels, but is also, more often than not, found in jeans and a T-shirt, with minimal make-up. Both are hands-on mothers, furiously juggling their home lives with full-on careers involving a variety of different projects. In addition to Malaika, for example, Gallagher Sawiris is also the woman behind Icon Communications, a full-service corporate communication agency she set up in 1998. Earlier this year, she launched a new magazine, Cairo West, where she is the main investor.

Gallagher Sawiris has clearly always been determined to follow her own path. When I suggest that, as the wife of one of the wealthiest men in Egypt, she doesn’t really need to work, she dismisses the notion immediately. “It’s not an option for me,” she explains. “Work is what keeps me sane. It’s what drives me and makes me organize my day and brings me into contact with different segments of society. That’s one of the things I loved about Cairo when I first came here – that there are so many different faces to it and I felt I was in touch with a lot of them.” Does her husband approve? She laughs. “I think if I didn’t work, Samih would probably not have married me!” As for taking part in society soirees, both are happy to take a back seat. “We are a pretty low key couple,” she explains. “We are both really busy working and we have our family. There’s only so much time that you have and we both have our priorities.”

Andrade is similarly low-key, with her life also revolving predominantly around her family in Zamalek.  Both she and Gallagher Sawiris have a strong desire to give back to society, which is where Malaika comes in. The idea originated with an export-import business that Andrade was running several years ago, when she was producing sheets to sell in Ecuador. As Andrade explains, “I was going to the factories to work on the production and I saw that there were a lot of artists working in these places; they were all talented but due to their circumstances, confined to their sewing machines. I thought that must be one of the most difficult things for someone who is creative to go through.” So together, they decided to set up a business that was socially responsible, utilizing the superb cotton Egypt is famous for. And at the same time they provided their workers – predominantly women – with a skill, a fair wage and the opportunity to be creative. Currently Malaika employs 60 people and has made a name for itself for its stylish, high-quality cottons, with scores of high-end suppliers and shops in Gouna, Khan El Khallili and a new store due to open in Designopolis this year.

Both women clearly get tremendous satisfaction from the project and are justifiably proud of the impact it’s had. As Andrade says, “It’s very difficult for a lot of women in Egypt to work. They can’t leave their children or their husbands don’t want them to work. So it seemed like a good idea to train them so they can work from home if they need to.”  Gallagher Sawiris says that the business “started with one woman from Shoubra and then slowly encompassed women from absolutely everywhere; including a lot of refugees. We give them all training and they are able to teach others in their neighbourhoods. What’s amazing is that they’re working mainly with white fabric which can get very dirty easily. And yet everything they would bring to us was in perfect condition. Because these women had never worked before, and were earning an income for the first time, they had so much pride in what they were doing.”

Of course, working in Egypt can be challenging, though both say there is a double standard that makes it easier for foreign women to navigate the system. As Andrade says, “Because we’re hawagas, we’re much freeer. We don’t feel as constrained by society as we would at home or as Egyptian women feel here.” And the cultural similarities between South America and Egypt also help. Gallagher Sawiris jokes that her husband “always said he was super impressed with how I adapted to Egypt until he came to Ecuador and realised I made no effort whatsoever! The whole dynamic is similar. The importance of family. The different social classes and all that brings with it. And the whole work ethic. Here you have Insha’Allah and there we have manyana (tomorrow!)  So it’s very, very similar!”

Ultimately both are happy and fulfilled – Andrade says she has long since learned to “just give in to the challenges” for an easier life and Gallagher Sawiris takes frequent trips to the desert with her family when she needs to get away from it all. Every now and then, the reality of just how far they’ve come, geographically and emotionally, hits home. As Gallagher Sawiris explains, “Margarita and I grew up together in Ecuador and if you had asked us when were graduating from high school at 18 if we were going to be living in Egypt and having children here, we would have laughed. We would have never imagined that both of us were going to end up in Egypt with husbands and children – and running a business together!”

By Hoda Metwally

Their perfectly proportioned bodies and luscious features are prized possessions for top designers everywhere. In the world’s fashion capitals – Paris, Milan, London and New York – models become muses, their every whim catered to and, as Linda Evangelista once said, they ‘rarely get out of bed for less than $10,000.’ Here in Cairo…. we give them warm Pepsi, while they swat away a legion of mosquitoes sucking their blood. Enigma’s Hoda Metwally goes behind the scenes for a dose of the reality behind the glamour.

Sarah Shaheen, Danya Cherif, Karina Shalaby, Amina Goede, Arwa Gouda, Lobna Amin, Art Directed & Styled by Maissa Azab, Photographed by Khaled Fadda shot on location for eniGma Magazine

Ah, the model; long limbs, pouty lips and smouldering eyes peering out at you. The kind of girl that looks at home in mile high heels and equal lengths of hair; the type of girl women want to be and men want to bed. The walk, the look, the stance and that indefinable mystique that has taken a bevy of beautiful girls and turned them into icons. A model is to fashion what a pen is to a writer: the final ingredient in all things fashion. But, unfortunately for us, Egypt is a few chapters short of a novel. In a society where covering up is a prerequisite to going outside, shoulders are blasphemous and heaven forbid, we might consider wearing a skirt, the modelling industry, at first glance, appears to have no place here. But, things are slowly changing. Off in the distance, six girls are fighting the good fight. Brought out by the revolution in the media industry, society’s sweethearts finally have a place on set.

A small community of stunning, painfully sophisticated young women is helping to redefine the modelling industry in Cairo. Today, our models are competing on an international level but it’s not without blood, sweat and a slew of mosquito bites that they’re getting the perfect shot. Up against an infant fashion industry and a culture that’s still more disapproving than admiring, these girls have their work cut out for them. Without the guidance of professional agencies, they’re often working on instinct, forced to book their own shoots and to trust in the professionalism of those around them.

As 26-year-old Danya Cherif says, “Not everyone here understands what it is to be a model. To create a moment for a photo, you need a team of people at the top of their game. It’s important to trust the people you work with.” Having worked in the US, UK and Canada, Cherif is aware of how things should be. “Here, I work with repeat clients. I’ve developed a relationship with them and trust they will portray me in the best way,” she says. Her portfolio is an impressive mix of runway, fashion shoots and campaigns – her first modelling job was in Town & Country magazine, proving she was a natural born model from the start.

Similarly, Sara Shaheen (a former Miss Egypt) keeps her clients limited to the ones she knows. “It’s a difficult industry to be in when the rest of the country isn’t on the same playing field,” she explains. “I’ve been cheated in the past and I’ve learned the way society perceives models, so I’m only interested in protecting myself.”  Aware of the limitations of the industry, Shaheen is determined to keep her options open  – she’s currently working on building a new career in interior design.

Gorgeous Amina Goede agrees that it’s difficult. “I choose jobs based on what people will think. I won’t model a swimwear line, even if it’s done tastefully done, because Egypt isn’t ready for it. But I hope that will change,” says Goede.  As the youngest of the bunch, Goede has already decided to pursue her modelling career in Germany after graduating from college. “It’s almost impossible to trust people here in Egypt when you’re a model,” she says.

Self proclaimed ‘model by inheritance’, Karina Shalaby – daughter of former top model Shirley Shalaby – is also very aware of the challenges. “You can’t be a full time model here. The jobs that are worth it don’t come often enough, and you have to be very particular with the ones you take,”  she says. But as her mother is the founder of the En Vogue Modelling & Finishing School, they’re hoping to slowly re-shape the industry from the inside out – and inject some much-needed professionalism. “We teach our clients about etiquette, how to walk the runway and how to pose. We give them everything they need to become a professional high fashion model,” she explains.

And there are rays of hope. With names like Pierre Cardin, Christian Louboutin and Dolce & Gabbana on her resume, the strikingly tall and ambitious Lebanese-born beauty, Lubna Amina, 25, is riding high – and she’s excited about the future of modelling in Egypt. “Despite all the  problems in society and the industry, it’s important to remember that it doesn’t stop some of the world’s top designers from coming and having shows here. Almost every two months, I hear of someone else coming. Christian Louboutin was just here so it can’t be that bad,” she points out.

Arwa Gouda – the most famous of the beautiful bunch by virtue of her silver screen status – says she’s also been fortunate enough to witness a slow but significant change. “We live in a country where some of us can’t even walk in the street comfortably so accepting the modelling industry will take time,” she says. The model-turned-actress is confident that one day we’ll have an industry we can be proud of. “With advertising and fashion growing pretty quickly, modelling will grow too. One day,” she laughs, “One day it will change.”

Perhaps no one knows more about the industry than eniGma’s own fashion director – and Cairo’s top stylist – Maissa Azab, who also styled this stunning shoot. For Azab, the potential is there – but there’s still a long way to go. “We have beautiful girls but the industry is lacking,” she says. “If there was someone to teach them how to pose, how to bring out the charisma they already have, then we could have one of the top modelling industries in the world…”

By Amy Mowafi

When the Abaza brothers – Cairo society’s most spotlighted siblings – sat down with eniGma for their first ever interview as a trio, they revealed much more than they intended to and we discovered much more than we’d assumed

Fayez Abaza, Farag Abaza & Hassan Abaza Art Directed & Styled by Perihan Kharama Photographed by Khaled Fadda shot on location for eniGma Magazine

The silvery-quick pace at which modern empires are built leaves little room for legacies. Fast money makes the world go round and who has time to think about what comes next or what came before?

Well, apparently the Abaza boys do.

In fact, they think about it a lot. It both compels and constrains them. It binds them.  Which, given the assumptions often made about these three brothers, is ironic. But we’re a society that sucks up other people’s opinions, perceptions and presumptions seemingly by osmosis. You may not know the Abaza boys, but you know what you think of them. They’re players (Fayez), party-boys (Hassan), or pretentious (Farag). Not my words, mind you, theirs. Because they know. They know what you think you know. They’re aware of the words that get bandied about that biting little bubble that is Cairene high society.

But it is what it is, and they won’t be giving the matter any more thought than strictly necessary. Because there are more important things to be taking care of… namely (and no pun intended) the family name. This legacy that lives and breathes and still vies for attention in that place most call ‘the real world’. There is a reverence and respect afforded to them by virtue of their surname, and by virtue of their own respect for that name.

And it’s not that they’re heirs to some fabulous fortune or the even the extravagance of a bountiful business empire built in a single generation before them. It’s not that type of family or that type of legacy. There’s no real tangible territory to point your finger at and say, “One day, all this will be yours.”

It’s more complicated that that. The Abazas are a clan. That’s not a word I use in some pithy literary sense, but in the most literal meaning of the term. They’re united by kinship and descent. That’s how the dictionary defines it, that’s how the Abazas define themselves.

The Abaza clan has been hanging around Egypt since way back in the mid-1800s when they emigrated from Abazinia – a region now part of Russia – via a generational stop-over in Turkey.  They’ve even got their own Wikipedia page; which pretty much explains everything, both literally and metaphorically.

The reason – just in case you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last two centuries – that all this fuss is made over this particular family, is because they seem to have produced an extraordinary number of exemplary individuals. Their family tree – every single generation – is littered with high profile politicians, intellectuals, business moguls and literary sensations. According to Al Ahram Weekly, during the accession of the young King Farouk, “the Abaza family had solicited palace authorities to permit the royal train to stop briefly in their village so that the king could partake in refreshments offered in a large, magnificently ornamented tent they had erected in the train station.”

Today’s there’s positively thousands of Abazas running around the country. And they’re all related.  Some rich, some poor, some prevalent (and relevant) some, well, not so much. By their own admission, this particular trio are not the wealthiest Abazas ever, nor indeed the poorest. But they are, without a doubt, amongst the most socially spotlighted Abazas.

Their uncle – Maher Abaza – was quite the influential power player within the governmental ruling party during his heyday as Egypt’s Minister of Electricity & Energy. More pertinently, their own father – the late Moustafa Ismail Abaza –was considered by one and all ‘Omdet El Abaza’ or, the head of the Abaza clan. He was the man to whom all the Abazas – from far and wide – would turn for a shoulder to cry on or indeed, a shoulder to stand on. The offices of his international cement trading company acted as an open house for the desires and demons, the wants and woes of his very extended family, and indeed the wider community. If you had a problem – whatever it was, whoever you were, and wherever you were from – Moustafa Ismail Abaza would make it better. When he passed away in 2003, over 10 thousand people descended upon the Mostafa Mahmoud Mosque to pay their respects. When their beautiful and popular sister died in a tragic accident four years later, it seemed, momentarily, as if the entire city was in mourning.

That is the power these three boys wield; it’s not the financial leverage that most assume them to have, but rather an influence born of an inherited social standing. And, to borrow from the cliché, it’s a power that comes with a tremendous amount of pressure and responsibility.

“When my father passed away it left a big gap in the entire Abaza family. We lost the head of our community,” says Farag, the oldest of the three. “It left a big gap in all our lives, but I’m trying to fill it as best I can. I want to be there for our community just like my father was. Everywhere we go – anywhere in the world – people know us and extend their support. He knew so many people, and all those people admired him. I try very hard to emulate him. He dedicated and devoted his entire life to helping people in any capacity possible – which is very difficult in this day and age because life gets in the way. It’s harder to find a balance between professional commitments and altruistic ideals. But my father taught us well.”

Of course those whose interactions with the younger two Abaza boys have been limited to the late-night social whirls of the city may scoff at such lofty notions. Fayez’s infamous altercation with the media back in 2008 did little to help their cause. After getting into a public tussle with his ex-fiancé’s father (a media personality) outside a famous Cairo hotspot, the presses had a field day with the incident. And this being Cairo, everyone – including mammoth talk show host Amr Adib – had something terribly uninformed to say about it, aggravating an already tense situation. “I’m not a bad boy,” says Fayez who is, surprisingly, the shiest and quietist of the trio. “It was just a bad choice.”

“Let’s just says Fayez has learned from the experience,” interjects Farag. “And as a family we also learned that we have a lot of friends out there. There was a big plan at the time to ruin us in the media, but people really supported us, and weighed in to prevent that from happening. It’s at those times that you really find out who you’re real allies are. You find out who is going to stand by you, and who is going to talk badly about you. But let’s not go into that too much. It’s over now. It’s in the past.”

The real desires of these boys – their objectives, hopes, values, ideals and responsibilities remain behind closed doors. They refuse to air their good intentions and good deeds in public – because they refuse to succumb to the idea that they have anything to prove to the naysayers.  “If I paid any attention to the criticisms of others I’d never get anything done,” says 30 year-old Hassan, the youngest of the three. “The fact is I don’t care to be a part of this thing that they call high society. I don’t care where you’re from and how much money you have in your pockets. I treat the person who earns 100 LE a month in exactly the same way I treat a person who earns a million. My objective is being the best Hassan that I can be, not moulding myself to fit the perceptions, expectations or desires of others.  In all my dealings with people, I think about my father and what he did. I hope that when I die, people – the people that truly matter – will remember me the way they remember him, with love and respect. As someone who did good in the world.”

In between all this wonderful altruism, there are still the day jobs to get on with, and each of three Abaza boys is pounding out their own professional path…

Partnering up with his brother Fayez, Hassan launched RIMedia  - named after their late sister Reem  in 2003. The production, events and media company has fast become a pivotal player in the local industry. Hassan focuses on the events side of the business, conceptualising and executing stunning and unique settings for both large-scale events and high-end outlets. He’s also set up two outlets of his own. Delano Lounge at Seasons Country Club (which is owned by his best friend Tarek Hegazy) and another Delano at Hacienda on Egypt’s North Coast. “A million people in this country have great ideas,” says Hassan. “But everything usually falls apart at the implementation stage. My main focus is always the quality – from the food and the setting to the service and atmosphere. That’s what sets me apart.”

Hassan took his first tentative steps into the events business in 2003 when Fayez was was organising a daily charity Ramadan iftar for the underprivileged in the Nile-side grounds of the Cairo Sheraton. Barely out of university, Hassan struck a deal with his brother to reconceptualise the space (every single night) into a slick setting for social set. He dubbed it Aal Nil and it quickly became one the season’s favourite Ramadan haunts. Today, this might seem like a perfectly reasonable proposition. But back then, only the biggest industry personalities would consider hosting their own Ramadan tent. Yet this upstart kid was trying to play with the big boys… and beat them at their own game. In that one Ramadan, he set the wheels in motion for a shift in the very structure of the local events landscape. As with most Egyptian institutions, age, wisdom and of course financial power were once the prerequisites for entry into a very limited events market. Hassan however – along with generational cohorts such as Ahmed Ganzoury – changed the rules. Today it’s the young, hot and hip who are given party privileges and Hassan was amongst the first to give Cairo’s fickle society set the confidence to place their faith in the young.

The best of Hassan however, is yet to come.  For months now, he’s been in secret negotiations with Egyptian billionaire entrepreneur Naguib Sawiris about a mammoth one-of-a kind project set to change the way Cairo does concerts. And as we sat together in Farag’s living room – a space strewn with children’s toys, Play Stations and all the paraphernalia of family life – he revealed the details of his master plan for the very first time….

Hassan and Sawiris are set to build a 20,000 capacity stadium – the very first of its kind in Egypt – to host superstar concerts and special sporting events. Sawiris will provide the financial backbone and Hassan will be responsible for concept and execution – of both the stadium and the events. It’s the type of once-in-a-lifetime project that those with immense experience can only dream of. And Hassan is the man with the plans. “In Egypt we spend millions of pounds creating a spectacular setting for a single night,” says Hassan. “Dismantling that space when you’re done often feels like destroying your own baby. By creating a permanent stadium for these sorts of events, and having at least six of them a year, I hope to create a real concert culture in this county. That’s the dream and that’s what I’m working on with Naguib. It’s going to take at least another three years and finding the right space for the stadium is a challenge, but God willing, it will happen. It’s going to be amazing.”

Meanwhile Fayez, a former soccer player, is investing his energies in sports media productions. His latest creative credit – a show entitled Misr Wel Mea’alem, featuring sporting legend and Egyptian football manager Hassan Shehata – made serious waves last summer. “Our national football team had an amazing amount of success. We’ve won three African Cups and I felt we needed to shine spotlight on those achievements. I wanted to document the story behind the success as a legacy for the future of the sport”, explains Fayez.

Early next year, Fayez – through his own company Ayro – will also be flooding the country with its first set of shiny brand new vending machines. It’s a simple idea, but revolutionary for a country that’s only just rediscovering the joys of loose change. “Of course when I first started thinking about this, it sounded ridiculous, but I knew the time would come.”

Meanwhile Farag, who founded cement and petroleum company African Trade just over nine years ago – seems to have taken it upon himself to watch over his brotherly brood in the absence of a father figure. “I support them with all their business projects and I’m always there to offer advice or practical help. Not that they always want it. I have many friends that could really help them in their businesses, but they insist on finding their own feet. They want to do it on their own, rather than exploit family connections.”

Three years out of university Farag famously married Dalia Soliman. ‘Famously’ because Dalia happened to be the daughter of Omar Soliman – the head of the Egyptian Intelligence Services; a man who has lauded over the Egyptian corridors of power for the last 17 years and whom Foreign Policy magazine once dubbed the Middle East’s most powerful intelligence chief. “On my last day of college I saw this beautiful girl walking across campus and that was it,” says Farag. The double whammy of surnames has long provided the chattering classes with plenty of ammunition for their chattering. Not that the couple have ever courted the attention. “Contrary to popular perception, I wasn’t trying to make this a high profile coupling,” says Farag. “I know in our community it’s sort of expected, but we both prefer to be low-profile. I grew up in Germany so I had no idea who her father was, nor did I understand anything about the intelligence services. It was only when I went to meet her father at his offices to ask for Dalia’s hand in marriage that I realised the extent of his influence. To be honest, I did panic momentarily. I suddenly found myself overcome with fear. But he is such a kind, generous and charismatic man, he immediately made me feel at ease.”

The rest of the Cairo community however was not so easy to calm. “When we first got married I suddenly had this huge social pressure put on me,” says Farag. “Everyone was thinking that because I’d married into this big political family I was now obliged to make a tremendous amount of money, or that special allowance would be made for me; which was not the case at all. That’s not the way I was brought up, and as someone who’s also from a big family, that’s not something I need to chase.”  Today, save the constant social obligations, the father of two (Yusef, 11 and Ismail, prefers to stay as low-profile as possible.  “We are a very normal family,” he says. “We don’t have any security; we don’t have blacked out cars out in front of our house or anything of that sort. But some people will never stop talking and there is nothing you can do about it. You just accept it, ignore it and focus on what’s important to you.”

With Farag long settled, the remaining two Abaza boys have spent a good decade happily negotiating the attentions of a legion of society lovelies, all eager to marry into the family. “I know in the past people thought of us as players,” says Hassan. “And we’ve definitely had our fun, but things are different now.”

Having had their fair share of fun, Fayez and Hassan – like all Good Egyptian boys – are now ready to settle down with the type of girls  who refused to ‘have fun’ with them back in the wild child days.  “When it comes to marriage it’s a whole different story,” says Hassan, who got engaged last year. “I see a lot of my mother and my sister in my fiancé. She’s honest, trustworthy and innocent. And that’s very important. She has a very childlike quality which I love. And of course she’s very pretty.”

So on the14^th of May 2011, much to the disappointment of a many a pretender to the throne, Hassan will wed pretty brunette May El Badrawy at the Manial Palace. He’ll be organising the event himself, and as with all good high society weddings, he has his hopes pinned on a performance by a huge international superstar.

As for Fayez, well, well he’s asked that I keep this little box unchecked for now, but don’t be too surprised if he follows suit sooner than expected. But he will say this, “The girl I marry has to have the right education, family background and religious beliefs. She also has to be sexy.”

So now that we’ve got the girls in order and the booming businesses in check, the Abaza Boys can get back to the real issue at hand: making time for this legacy of theirs. “Our main aim and goal is to leave behind a well of goodwill when we die. To be remembered as a family who made a difference in people’s lives. Just like our father. At the end of the day, he was not a business tycoon. He did not leave us a huge fortune. What he left us was much bigger than that – the love of the people.”

By Hassan Hassan

Local art and design is experiencing a mini-renaissance with young ambitious Egyptians making, moulding and selling a new brand of Oriental-inspired creativity. Fusing the best of both East and West, their unique wares are doing a roaring trade across the region and beyond. Enigma meets Generation Fusion.

Generation Fusion, Art Directed by Perihan Kharma, Photographed by Khaled Nagy on location at Arabesque in Cairo for Enigma Magazine

Five years ago, fashion didn’t exist. Not in Egypt. Not really. In order to be remotely stylish, you either had to travel, or swallow your pride and give your uncle’s ex wife’s second cousin a long list of things you needed when they travelled abroad. Now we’ve suddenly got a high street market; with a TopShop, a Zara, an H&M and even a Debenhams in Alexandria. Beymen opened up and there was suddenly a place you could buy Louboutins (and trust they were actually made in France and not China).

It wasn’t just fashion. It was furniture. Roche Bobois launched and Art of Form let us know we could buy a Fendi couch as well as a handbag. It was a move in the right direction: this introduction of quality products and great design, and the opportunity to break away from the cookie cutter mould.

But what about making it our own? Sure, you could match your Zara basic tee with a scarf you bought downtown or add copper coasters to that table from Bo Concept, or hang up a Georges Bahgoury above that Fendi couch. But there was still a very limited local design scene – at least when it came to quality – to complement the burgeoning international market.

Yet we’ve always been a creative society. Walk into any Egyptian house and you’ll see a painting by the owner, a pillow sewn from an old dress and maybe even perfume bottles strewn just like a vintage store in London. Only one thing was missing: we’d never harnessed this potential and turned it into a business. Now, we’ve cottoned on to the realisation that we can make our cake and not just eat it, but sell it. Designers have popped up everywhere and suddenly we have a crop of young and hip creatives trying to make a name on an international level. It’s a mini-renaissance, the awakening of a new generation that’s discovered that we don’t just have to buy it from Prada, we can be Prada. The nine individuals we’ve chosen are part of that generation – they’re either creating the work or they’re providing the platform to sell it on.

No one knows or understands the selling side better then Mona Afifi and her partner, Sherifa Mahmoud, the dynamic duo behind the country’s first online shopping destination: www.style-treasure.com. Afifi’s business brain is not to be messed with. A former magazine editor, she’s concise, organised and speaks with the assured efficiency of someone who knows exactly what she’s doing, now and in the long-term. “We set up Style Treasure because we wanted to encourage local design by creating a platform for quality items and a means to distribute them all over the world,” she says.

In the last year it’s become the one-stop-shop for regional design. Starting with 15 brands, the site now boasts over 100 designers, with shoes, dresses and  accessories by the likes of CC Skye, Rana Gill, Mok, Vintage Anonymous and Shibshibi. All the items showcased on the site have been vetted by the pair, with rigiorous quality control high on their fashionable agenda. “It’s all about the quality and we want people to trust us,” says Mahmoud. “We’re still building that trust, so we have to make sure that everything we sell is up to standard.” Style-treasure.com may be the Arab answer to Net-a-porter, but where Net-a-porter is simply a vehicle, Style-treasure is a catalyst.  The success of their site has also been fuelled by a resurgence of young fashion designers and the major steps taken by Minister of Foreign trade and Industry, Rachid Mohamed Rachid , to encourage Egyptian small enterprises. “It’s great because suddenly there is someone who is supporting all of these fresh faces and pushing and propelling people to create actual brands within Egypt,” says Afifi.

Meanwhile, Malak Madkour, the young woman behind Pour Elle, has taken an age-old idea and turned it into something achingly cool and modern. We’ve always been a souk oriented culture – that ancient one-stop-shop where you could wander lazily, pick things up, touch them and try them. But instead of going to Khan El Khalili, Cairo’s coolest are now going to City Stars, where the quarterly Pour Elle exhibition brings together some of the country’s hottest new fashion and interior designers. “Pour Elle started off as a venture between friends,” says Madkour. “A group of women sitting around wondering how they could sell their talents and showcase them in an environment that was fun, sophisticated and would bring people in.” Established a little over a year ago, it already showcases more than 100 up-and-coming designers.

Next up is Adam Mourad. Egyptian by birth and Canadian by upbringing, he is one half of the duo behind hot new Designopolis-based art gallery, Articulate Baboon (the other half – Omar Ozalp – had to skip out on the interview and shoot due to a broken leg). Articulate Baboon is decidedly intellectual without sacrificing on fun. With its pithy tagline of ‘Highbrow Aesthetics Meets Egyptian Genetics’, it’s on a mission to shake up the local art-scene. “Art in Egypt has become slightly stagnant, and we want to introduce this new wave of reform,” he says. “We want to introduce more pop and graffiti artists to the scene. We’re trying to give these street-inspired grass roots artists the opportunity to grow and a space to showcase their creativity.” Much more than a gallery, Articulate Baboon is also a work shop. “We want the artists we bring in from abroad – our latest import is Juan Carlos Noria from Spain – to give local artists the tools and opportunity to harness their crafts in the right direction.”

Already making serious waves on the local art scene is a certain Ms. Dalia Sabet. Her debut show at Zamalek gallery, Studio 14, sold out and her work – an ethereal fusion of Western ideals and Eastern materials – recently made the cover of Community Times magazine. She’s currently working on a second show and a furniture line with her sister, Dina Sabet, of El Horreya (another popular Oriental Fusion brand) fame. “I’ve always loved rummaging through vintage markets and getting my inspiration from there,” says Sabet. “In Alexandria, they have amazing pieces, from mirrors to tables and chairs, all of which I use in my paintings.” Sabet takes the old and forgotten and through her carefully crafted artwork, makes it new, hip and hot.

Now, let’s take Reem Mansour, the ingénue behind Rimal. She is yet another artist/designer defined and inspired by Egypt. Her intricate interiors pieces are interweaved with bold and colorful ethnic references, from calligraphy to coins. Inspired by the sands – that is what rimal means in Arabic – of Aswan and Hurghada, and the glass makers that resided there, she wanted to take the ancient craft and make it her own. Make it high end. She studied economics and finance at London’s University of Westminster, and it was there she was inspired to create a line that her peers would not just look at and admire, but want to buy. With Rimal making waves in Geneva, Kuwait, London and of course Cairo, she’s come a long way. “I wanted to make a line that was inspired by Egypt, to force the crafts into creating something that the world would look at and think; wow this was made in Egypt. And I’ve garnered a lot of success through it,” she says picking up a silver box with Fatima’s kaf emblazoned on it and a little bag inside it. “This was inspired by the nuts in the souks of Aswan, so you can use the bags by themselves, put a candle in the box and let it light up the kaf.”

Enter Nihal Basha (yes, that is her real name), our token blonde for the day; blonde by nature but definitely not by disposition. She’s a soft spoken designer of chic and sexy bags, scarves and accessories. Her quirky fanny packs have become style staples amongst the fashion cognoscenti. She takes old Egyptian prints, messes with the colours, cuts them up to create funky shapes, and adds plenty of ethnic embellishments. “I’ve always enjoyed playing with fabrics and patterns and when I saw people’s reactions, it kind of gave me the confidence to just go for it. I won’t know I’ve made it for sure until I get some international recognition, which I’m working towards,” she says with a shy little smile.

My final interview is with the Shibshibi girls. The two of them plop down in front of me, clad in white jeans, a t-shirt and wearing their flip-flops. Brightly coloured watches glitter on their wrists and neon sunglasses sit on their head. Talking to Nadia Ahmed and Dina Naguib, two thirds of the Shibshibi trio (the third, Sarah Hamza, couldn’t make it) it’s clear they’re still wide-eyed at their success. “We decided to make flip-flops and never expected it would be such a success,” says Naguib. “It was just something we set out to do and we did it.”  These three girls ran around Cairo searching for the perfect flip-flops (hey, at least they weren’t wearing heels).What they ended up with were slippers emblazoned with arabesque shapes, Egyptian icons from all ages – think a tabla and the Eye of Horus – modernised with pops of colours and straps emblazoned with lace and cotton balls. “We started out by researching the design on the internet, finalizing the shapes we wanted to use and then finding the perfect place to manufacture them.” It paid off.  Shibshibi are stocked at Ghazl El Banat, Lalloushi, style-treasure.com, Eklego in Diplo, Munchies in Hacienda and Loolies in Hacienda, raking in about LE 30,000 a day. No small feat (or feet) for a company that started out a mere six months ago.

The shoot begins; eight girls have their hair and make up done and one boy is ready to get this over with. Dalia throws Reem a funky pair of vintage earrings as Nihal helps both of them add volume to their hair. We throw a Dinz scarf from style-treasure on Adam and do our best to cover up the bow. Mona laughs insanely as Malak screams down the phone that she has to go immediately before saying goodbye for five minutes. We throw Dina up on the bar and she tries not to hit her head on the beer bottles as Sherifa concentrates on striking the perfect pose, which sends Mona into another fit of giggles. This is the future of design, and it couldn’t be in better hands… literally.

Sex, Love & the Arab World

The Men We Love Come Clean

By Amy Mowafi

Against her better judgement, Senior Editor Amy Mowafi braves the inner workings of the male psyche…and finds out objects in the mirror are far simpler than they appear…

The Boys, Photographed by Adham Mostafa on location at the Presidential Suite of the Conrad Hotel in Cairo for Enigma Magazine

It was a crazy idea. Handpick five of Egypt’s favourite and most dynamic young men, throw them in a room together and get them to talk about sex, love and rock n’ roll. We wanted to find out what these men really think about Arab women. We wanted them to confess their deepest, darkest and most hilarious thoughts. What do the men we love…love about women? So on a balmy autumn evening, high above the Nile in the Conrad hotel’s Presidential Suite, Mohamed Hefzy, Tarek Ganainy, Mohamed Banany, Hany Soufrakis and Ayman Baki got cosy and came clean.

Vital Statistics:

Mohamed Hefzy, Single

Blockbuster scriptwriter

Tarek Ganainy, Married

Partner in TV Production Company Media Clinic

Mohamed Banany, Married

Vice President, Coldwell Banker, Egypt

Hany Soufrakis, Single

Executive Director of Barach Gruppo & Chairman of Ghibli Raceway

Ayman Baki, Married

Senior Partner & Marketing Director Ethos Properties

FATAL ATTRACTION

Amy: Ok boys, let’s start with an easy one, what do you find attractive in a woman?

Hefzy: That’s easy. The texture of her skin.

Amy: What? So a woman walks into a room, and you think, wow, her skin has great texture?!

Baki: Yeah, that’s a new one!

Ganainy: It’s all about the charisma. If a girl’s charismatic, she’ll attract attention. She could be standing in the corner of a room, chatting to her friends, and something about the way she’s interacting can be so attractive.

Banany: It’s something that you can just sense. It’s charisma and attitude.

Baki: So you’re saying if she’s ugly but has “charisma” you’d look at her?

Ganainy: No!

Hefzy: The word ugly is politically incorrect.

Ganainy: I think certain sizes are unacceptable.

Amy: I can’t believe you just said that.

Ganainy: I just mean certain sizes don’t match needs. I’m a tiny guy; I don’t want a woman who is bigger than me!

Soufrakis: I’m not with the guys on this one. There may be physical attraction when you see someone for the first time, but that can only last so long. The next step is the character. It’s all about the personality.

Ganainy: Of course, it’s the looks that attract your attention at first, but it’s the personality that lasts. Even if you’re married to Charlize Theron, in a year or two she’s just another woman. I mean you’re not looking at her and thinking ‘you’re Charlize Theron’. If you’re not with someone you can talk to, it’s not going to last.

Hefzy: If I’m married to Charlize Theron, I won’t really care about character.

Baki: So what happens when you get bored of her?

Hefzy: Just get divorced.

Amy: Well, before we started obsessing over Charlize, Hany made a lovely point about this thing they call personality. So what character traits are attractive?

Banany: Someone who can understand you.

Ganainy: Someone with whom you can let your guard down and still feel appreciated.

Banany: It’s all just a chemical reaction, a spark; like magic.

Baki: Even if Charlize Theron was throwing herself at you, but there was another woman you really liked, you’d probably go for the one you liked.

THE ONE NIGHT STAND

Baki: Let me ask you guys a question, do you like one night stands?

Soufrakis: I thought we weren’t going to get that personal.

Hefzy: One night stands are not personal if you ask my opinion.

Soufrakis: So long as it’s far away from your own particular circle, I think most men wouldn’t have a problem with that.

Ganainy: Wouldn’t it be great if you could tell from the way a woman looked at you if she was after a relationship or just sex?

Baki: Some guys don’t like one night stands.

Ganainy: I don’t believe that.

Baki: Well I’ve never had a one night stand!

Ganainy: You never had the chance or you just chose not to go there?

Baki: Both!

Amy: I don’t believe that for a second.

Hefzy: What if you break her heart after one week? Does that count as a ‘one night stand’?

Soufrakis: One week, one day, that’s not the point. A one night stand is when you’re not serious.

Banany: But don’t all relationships essentially start with a one night stand? You wake up the next morning and decide if you want her again or not.

Soufrakis: If it’s someone you enjoyed being with, why stop at one night?

Hefzy: Because the fact remains that most Arab men are not ok with continuing a serious relationship with someone you’ve just been in a one night stand with.

Baki: Exactly!

Amy: So where are the boundaries? At what point is it ok for her to sleep with you? After a week, a month, a year, never before marriage?!

Banany: It depends on whether or not she’s Arab.

Hefzy: If things happen too quickly it’s not going to last with me. It makes me feel too insecure about her.

Baki: Of course it goes back to culture and tradition. If you were abroad you wouldn’t care so much. But in Egypt you have to live up to your family’s expectations of what a ‘good’ girl is.

Soufrakis: I once fell seriously in love with someone who was the very opposite of everything my family wanted from me. When you’re in love, you’re willing to bend the rules. It taught me that you can’t have a checklist of criteria. Love doesn’t work that way.

Hefzy: Personally, if I know there is going to be something that makes the relationship difficult, no matter how much I like the person, I will just back off. You have to have criteria. That doesn’t mean you’re inflexible, but you need to know what your comfort zone is.

SEX, LIES & THE PAST

Amy: So what happens when a woman asks, ‘Baby, am I the best you’ve ever had?’ I mean, how much about your past should your lover know?

Ganainy: There is nothing my wife doesn’t know about my past.

Baki: My wife and I laugh at the past together. It’s like, ‘Remember the days when I used to date X?’

Amy: You’ve told her everything?!

Baki: Yes everything!

Banany: And you’ve never regretted doing that?

Ganainy: I think there’s more chance of regret if you hide the truth, especially in a community as small as Cairo.

Banany: I think sharing everything just causes unnecessary tension.

Ganainy: I didn’t invite any of my ex-girlfriends to my wedding.

Baki: I invited all my ex-girlfriends

Banany: So did I.

Ganainy: Look, I figured it was her day. So if there is a 0.00001 % of her seeing one of my exes and getting upset, what’s the point?

Baki: I think she ought to be proud that she’s there with you, and not one of the other girls.

Ganainy: Yeah, but all my exes are still in love with me.

TILL LIVING TOGETHER DO US PART

Baki: Ok, I’ve got another question for the married guys. Would it have been better to live with your wife before tying the knot?

Ganainy: I had an ex-girlfriend whom I lived with in the States for around two years. You definitely get close to the person, quicker. Especially compared to dating in Egypt where you can’t really spend that much time with your girlfriend before you marry. It’s different when you spend all night with her. But it also means ‘goodbye’ can happen much quicker.

Amy: So if you had the chance to live with your wife before marriage, would you have still married her?

Ganainy: I think if you can make it through the first year of marriage, then you’re safe. I’m at the three year mark.

Hefzy: It’s definitely the routine of daily life that makes all the difference. But if you do it before marriage, it takes away all the novelty. You’re just making married life less special.

BAD GIRL LOVE

Amy: One of you said, “You can’t help who you fall in love with and sometimes a guy could just fall in love with a bitch.” So tell me, what makes a girl a ‘bitch’?

Baki: Girls who are with someone new everyday.

Hefzy: Someone who pretends they are something they’re not.

Soufrakis: Someone who says something and then does something else. Girls who play games.

Ganainy: It goes back to the culture issue. If you’re abroad and you sleep with a girl, it feels normal. She’s honest about it, she’s not kidding anyone. But in the Arab world there’s so much secrecy around sex it starts to feel dirty.

Amy: So what happens if you fall head over heels, and then discover the girl has a serious past?

Ganainy: I’m afraid I’m one of those old fashioned guys. I can’t stand for that.

Baki: So you’re totally in love with a woman, then discover she slept with a couple of guys, you would end it?

Ganainy: I wouldn’t even let myself get to the point where I fall in love with her. Why put myself in that situation?

Hefzy: My number is 7. No I’m just joking! In this society children are affected by their mother’s reputation, and we live in this society. So I can’t say it doesn’t matter. It matters, but there are more important things.

Ganainy: It’s not about the ‘sex’ so much. If a girl has been in love with 10 guys, even if she has never slept with any of them, I’d still be concerned. It means she’s not mature enough to differentiate between a crush and love. So how can I trust her?

Amy: I think it’s just a male ego thing. Every guy wants to the first.

Banany: If a girl has zero experience, that’s just as big a problem.  You have to educate them. I cannot be with someone who is inexperienced in life, especially when I have done and seen so much. I need someone who can support me.

Ganainy: Every guy has different priorities, but the basic requirements are the same – someone from a good family who can give your life a bit of balance.

“ALL THE WOMEN WHO INDEPENDENT”

Amy: Ok, so what do Arab men really think of the independent woman?

Hefzy: I can’t be with someone who is sitting at home because I am never home. But of course that type of woman demands a certain level of security in a man.

Ganainy: If a woman has a nine-to-five job and then brings that job back with her, it can be difficult. I’m lucky my wife has a private business. So she doesn’t have to work everyday but has something to keep her busy. Because even if she has nannies, cooks, maids and drivers, the home still needs attention. And if she has to do both, it’s not going to affect me, but she’s the one who will get tired.

Baki: I think it’s very important for a woman to work. She has to get her mind off her husband for a little while. It’s healthy for her to be occupied and have responsibilities beyond the house and kids. It’s important she feels needed and wanted.

Ganainy: I just can’t stand the idea of my wife having problems with a manager, the idea of some other man getting angry at her. If that happened, I’d make her leave her job the next day.

Amy: What?! Are you kidding me?

Baki: If she comes home upset several times, then maybe I’d step in.

Ganainy: I don’t think that after marriage, any other man has the right to be difficult with my wife.

Amy: I can’t believe I’m hearing this!

Banany: If she is independent, she has to solve her own problems.

Soufrakis: I could never accept a woman who stays at home. I’ve seen it with the woman in my family. The ones who don’t work just sit around and gossip all day. But when we both come home, I think we should leave work at the office. If professional stress starts to interfere with home life, that’s a problem.

Amy: Is it ok for your other half to be more successful than you?

Baki, Banany, Ganainy & Hefzy: Yes.

Soufrakis: I don’t believe you guys.

DATE ME, I’M DIVORCED!

Amy: Would you date or marry a divorced woman?

Soufrakis: I just think it’s sad there’s still a lot of stigma attached to it. Especially when both parties enter into a marriage with the best of intentions and it just doesn’t work out.

Amy: You think it’s sad, and yet it’s the men out there that are creating that stigma!

Ganainy: Let me tell you a story. I was in the North Coast with some friends and we saw this girl walking past us on the beach. The moment my friends found out she was divorced, their eyes lit up. They couldn’t believe their luck.

Baki: Exactly, the assumption is a divorced woman is easier to get into bed.

Hefzy: It’s not just about sex, they’re more emotionally vulnerable.

Soufrakis: I think the bottom line is this – publicly at least, this is not a sexually liberated society. Sex is still kept very hush hush, especially amongst women. So when a woman is divorced she automatically becomes a target.

Baki: The problem is divorced women stick to you, they’re very clingy.

WAS IT GOOD FOR YOU?

Amy: So how important is good sex to a relationship?

Banany: Sex gets less important as the relationship goes on. It’s more about passion, and chemistry, that special touch that’s more important than sex. If that spark dies, then you have a problem.

Hefzy: I know people who married their best friends and they tell me it’s the best thing they ever did.

Baki: It’s 80% important!

Banany: Women are different. Brazilian woman love sex, it’s in their blood. Arab women, not so much.

MEN KNOW BEST

Amy: If you could leave our female readers with one last piece of advice, what would it be?

Banany: Don’t look for love, it will come.

Ganainy: Let your guard down early on!

Banany: Give us some space!

Soufrakis: Be yourself. There’s noting more beautiful than a woman without pretension.

Hefzy: Don’t give in to the pressure to get married young.

Baki: Don’t listen when society tells you not to have sex!

What Arab Women Really Want

By Travis Randall

Brave be the man who takes on these five strong women, but our loveable Staff Writer Travis Randall was the man for the job.  Not only did he get the girls to open up, he made it out in one piece…just.

The Girls, Photographed by Ahmed Mobarez on location at the Presidential Suite of the Conrad Hotel in Cairo for Enigma Magazine

Once the men had spoken, we thought it was only fair to give the girls a chance to say their peace. This time we did things a little differently. We chose five strong, successful independent young women – outspoken women who weren’t afraid to tell it like it is, and tell the world what they really want…from the men they love. Two hours, ten thousand words and countless laughs later we were faced with an impossible challenge. Choosing a small sample of the stories, wisdom, jadedness, and experience of five extraordinary women on life’s most profound mystery…love.

Vital Statistics:

Arwa Gouda, Single

Top model and actress

Marwa Rakha, Single

Relationship expert for OTV

Nayrouz Abouzid, Divorced and Presently Engaged

Television producer and Managing Director of Alter-Ego Productions

Rasha Mabrouk, Single

Marketing Director, Abercrombie and Kent

Simat Kamel El Dika, Presently Single

Marketing & PR Director, Conrad Hotel

WHAT A GIRL WANTS

Travis: What are you really looking for in a man?

Rasha: Sense of humour, a guy who doesn’t take himself too seriously.

Marwa: Focus and purpose, he has to know why he’s waking up in the morning.

Arwa: Generosity in his feelings, thoughts and communication.

Marwa: Generosity in finances isn’t so bad either!

Simat: Ambitious, masculine, powerful, caring and protective.

Arwa: A man who lifts you up but doesn’t put you down; a man who doesn’t get overly jealous or try and curb your success.

KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOUR

Travis: You’re all independent women; does that mean you no longer want a guy to protect you?

Marwa: I want to know I have a backup but unless I ask for help, I don’t want him to interfere.

Nayrouz: I want protection, but I don’t want to have to ask for it.

Simat: Most of us are independent but we need someone to lean on sometimes. Men need to be trained to find the right balance.

Rasha: Men are confused because women are much more independent so they don’t need to lean on men so much as  they want to.

Nayrouz: Our parents taught us to be strong and independent but they also taught our men to be dependant on women. The father is usually out of the house, so the woman raises her sons. So many men want a mother figure instead of a lover.

Marwa: We’ve become the men that we wanted to marry.

WHO’S YOUR DADDY?

Travis: Would you prefer a landed or a self-made man?

Rasha: I’d prefer a self-made man. It shows he’s more driven and has a stronger character; even if you have to sacrifice the time he spends working. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Arwa: Why not? Why would you have a cake without eating it?

Rasha: I’ve never found a guy that has everything. The older I get the smaller my ‘list’ gets. When I was a teenager I had 10 things I wanted in a man. In my 20s it was six. Now it’s like two. He needs to be able to walk and think.

Marwa: We want different things at different ages. Now, I want a self-made man…even if he is not going to have as much time for family. I’m strong enough to help him with family and work.

Rasha: He can be self-made and rich…but that does not mean mentally rich or open minded. I’ve heard guys say with some air of pride, “I’ve never read a book in my life.”

Simat: I like a combination of both; a well stemmed person but yet a self- made one. I would not be attracted to a shallow man and that type of man would not be attracted to a woman like me.

Arwa: On the contrary, he wants to win you. You’re the perfect target. You have everything he doesn’t so he’ll want you to pass it on to your children.

Marwa: He wants to take you, mould you and put you in a dark room for his entertainment.

OH ROMEO, OH ROMEO …

Travis: What if mum and dad don’t approve?

Nayrouz: Oh, I’ve already been there! I married a guy who they felt was too young and it didn’t work out, so I learnt my lesson. Families usually know what you want and need.

Marwa: What’s wrong with young men?

Nayrouz: Nothing, but I was 24 and he was …five. I mean he was like a child – self absorbed and didn’t know how to share. He just needed his mother.

Marwa: My mum would be happy if I married anyone at this stage.

GOOD GIRLS DON’T DATE

Travis: Does dating make you ‘damaged’?

Arwa: I can learn a lot about men by watching other people date and spending time with guy friends. I don’t have to date 10,000 guys before I’m married.

Simat: Dating is difficult because we have this idea that every successful relationship has to end in marriage. I would say that I’m happy, but in our culture to be happy is to be married with a child – living in the shadow of a man.

Marwa: It’s like if there’s no man in the picture, there is no picture.

Arwa: We’re always told, “You’re not getting any younger baby.”

Simat: We always get into relationships with the word marriage looming over us.

Marwa: You’re not getting to know a man like that. You’re too concentrated on weighing him as a husband and provider. The women who frown on dating are frustrated because they can’t do it, and the men who frown on women who date a lot are just insecure.

Arwa: The more women a man has been with, the more idolised he is. If a woman does this she’s a whore. All guys think like that, even if they don’t say it. If he doesn’t count his conquests, I’ll accept him as he is.

Marwa: We shouldn’t accept men as they are. They also should work for our acceptance.

Arwa: I’m not saying he can do whatever he wants while we’re together, but his past made him who he is. But it’s not fair for polygamous men to demand monogamous women. If he judges me, I’ll open up his little black book and show him what’s inside.

Nayrouz: Finding the right man, with the right qualities for you is a matter of experience. Don’t just jump into marriage. You have to experience life. We don’t fully grasp our femininity until we do.

DIRECTORS AND DIAPERS

Travis: How can you juggle being a career woman, mother and lover?

Simat: Choose according to your drive. Is it family, career or a mix? For everything there is a price. To be successful is to find a balance.

Marwa: It’s not just about you and the baby, but also what type of man you’re with. With a certain kind of man, I’d be willing to freelance and stay at home. With another I’d have to work and find a nanny.

Nayrouz: What’s the difference between the two men?

Marwa: Firstly if I can count on him financially, secondly how he makes me feel if I ask him for money. Some men really make you feel like they’re giving you money, feeding you and paying for your clothes…so you better be good and live according to their rules.

Rasha: If I decided to quit work, I wouldn’t automatically expect him to pay for my life. I don’t think it’s fair to put the whole burden on the man.

Marwa: Bottom line is that what men want is not the ladies sitting in this room; they prefer women who are controllable, tameable, easy to pack, easy to wrap. They don’t want arguing or challenge. They want a secretary or teacher, but not a career woman.

THIS IS ONLY A TEST

Travis: How should a man answer the question “Do you wish I was thinner?”

Arwa: If a woman is asking her partner about her weight because she doesn’t like the way she looks that’s her problem. She knows that she doesn’t look good but wants his support to feel better.

Nayrouz: Men do it with sex. They ask, “Did you like that?” Men have areas that they are also insecure about. Every woman, no matter how strong, needs assurance. When she asks, “Do I look good?” she is really asking, “Why aren’t you giving me compliments?”

Marwa: It’s perfectly fine to tell a guy, ‘lose weight, or lose the facial hair. I don’t want to look at your flab’. I can receive the same criticism if it’s given in the right way, and if the content of the criticism is fair. There are five senses and you have to please your partner in all of them.

Arwa: Men are the same all over the world. They all love breasts.

TURN OFFS?

Rasha: Men who are stingy or catty.

Arwa: Men who are judgmental or talk rudely about others. Like those who think they’re so superior, they criticise everyone. Lack of education is also a turn off. I’ve literally had men make fun of me for reading a book.

Nayrouz: Being passive is also terrible. Many Arab men have become this way because they’ve had things delivered to them by their mothers.

Marwa: Men who brag about anything. How many women they’ve been with and how long they lasted.

TURN ONS?

Marwa: Hard in the right places.

Nayrouz: Very well put.

Arwa: It’s the whole package. His mental state, character the way he looks at you and the way he uses his words.

Simat: Masculine in looks (i.e. muscles, toned and attractive…) and masculine in the way he treats you. When I’m alone I’m both man and woman, but when I’m with a man, I want to remember that I’m a beautiful woman. You can call it demanding but at the end of the day women want to be supported. We want compliments and passion, and we’re willing to give it back.

DOUBLE STANDARDS

Travis: Any interesting dating experiences you’d like to share?

Marwa: Believe it or not, I dated bisexual guys and they were very kind, open minded and understanding. If he’s with another woman it’s insulting but if it’s a man, he’s giving him something I can’t.

Arwa: I have enough trouble competing with other women, imagine if I had to compete with men too!

Marwa: It’s not about gender or sexuality, it’s his character.

TILL DIVORCE DO US PART

Travis: Nayrouz and Simat, you’re both divorced, as Arab women that must be particularly hard…

Nayrouz: Not at all. I use it to manipulate men into feeling sorry for me and getting what I want. I’m honestly not joking. When I talk about past relationships I become very attractive. It’s in a man’s nature to compete so they’d like to see if they can do better than my first husband.

Simat: I do agree with Nayrouz to an extent. As a divorced woman it’s one of the first things you talk about. I don’t feel tagged or that I’ve been judged. But it has benefited me because men are competitive. They ask why you left and they want to know the story. And it helps me explain what I expect in a man right away without him actually asking. It sets a standard.

THE SCHOOL OF LOVE

Travis: What has love taught you?

Arwa: Be kind and generous with your feelings because it makes the other person feel you appreciate them. If they abuse it then it’s in your hands to leave.

Marwa: I’ve learned that Walt Disney lied to us. Their message was that all the men are saviours and they will make us happy. If I’m not happy on my own, no man will ever make me happy. If I’m Sleeping Beauty and numb, I can’t expect him to wake me with a kiss. I need to be happy on my own, then I’ll decide which man I want.

Rasha: I still like the fairytale but a much more practical version. Real love is a muddy fairytale.

Nayrouz: Loving someone too much can backfire. So for a while I thought I should learn to love a little less. But love is an incredibly animalistic feeling, there’s no midway. And if you try and curb your emotions you stop being human.

Arwa: If you don’t have problems, you’re not in love. It’s a battle with tears, longing and pillows covered in makeup. It shouldn’t be painful, but you have to know it includes pain.

Simat: You can benefit most from love when you know what you want. It’s an investment and both partners have to give.

WOMEN WANT THE LAST WORD…

Travis: Any last words of advice for our male readers?

Rasha: Don’t take women’s affection for granted. We invest a lot in relationships and men shouldn’t abuse that. If we’re secure in ourselves, we make fantastic partners.

Arwa: We’re not your mothers. I’ll give you as much love as I can but I can also walk away if you push me. Don’t underestimate the hurt you cause to women over little issues. We don’t have the same priorities and mindset as men but ours are still equally valid. We support men for priorities that they have, positive and negative. So men should try and harmonise with us.

Nayrouz: Arrogance is sexy, but please have a reason to be arrogant!

Simat: We (independent women) are a combination of two sexes. Outside a relationship we are strong, independent and hard working, but in a relationship we want to be women. Also, marriage is not only about love. Common values and compatibility matter as much as love.

Marwa: Don’t fear experienced women who have been through a lot. With the experience comes a lot of understanding and support. You’re going to have the best friend, lover, wife and mother he can find.

By Amy Mowafi

They are Cairo’s Bright Young Things. The Beautiful People. With the city at their beck and call, they’re revelling in the spotlight. Dressed to dazzle – head to toe from Beymen – this is their moment, their time to shine. This is ‘It’. Are you ready for their close up?

Styled & Art Directed by Maissa Azab, Shot on location at Fairmont Nile City, Cairo by M. Joudi

Every generation has them, and a term to describe them: a name, a moniker, a tantalising title with which to define those that define an era. Its successes and scandals, its desires and demons, its ambitions, attractions and its very aesthetic.

In the 30s they were dubbed Bright Young Things. In the 60s they were The Beautiful People, while the 80s belonged to the Masters of the Universe. Today they are simply called ‘It’. As if we had finally run out of superlatives, or something potent enough with which to describe the world they inhabit. Or at least the world we think they inhabit, with its glamour and glitter, drama and dazzle. ‘It’. A term arresting in its finality – this is ‘It’ – as if there were nothing bigger, better or more beautiful and yet a term at once infuriatingly elusive – she has ‘It’. What is ‘It’? As if ‘It’ were some ethereal force of spirit with which only the fortunate few are blessed.

But this is what we do. We grab these notions and gorge on them, we galvanize and glamorise them. But we ought not to be blamed. So what if we choose to ignore its turmoil and simply lay claim to its charm? Beyond the nine to five, the harsh realities of reality, these people – The Beautiful People, the social set, the glitterati, the ‘It’ people, give us a picture-perfect portrait on which to pin our desires for a lovelier life; a world of fashion and fabulousness, parties and precociousness and perhaps most importantly, a world of scintillating success. A beautiful brand of success that’s shiny and sparkly and limitless in its glossy possibilities.

And in Egypt, in a land the Western world would assume ought to be devoid of such dazzle, it is the very juxtaposition of an extravagant and esoteric elite on a culture still tied to tradition that makes our own particular breed of Beautiful People all the more thrilling. It is the idiosyncrasies that intrigue: a world of both Martinis and mint tea, a world where the call to prayer competes with the beat of the Pussy Cat Dolls and the young reign supreme.

There are of course too many to mention. But the eight we have chosen serve their purpose. They define an era. They give us a face or rather a number of fabulously made up faces and extravagantly dressed bodies, to put to the heady opening days of a new type of Arab high society; one that has been exposed to and educated by the West but refuses to be blindly enamoured by it.

They are a new generation – neither blue-bloods born into an old-school world of Oriental riches and resplendence nor prospectors, heading to Europe or America to seek their fortune. This is not about aristocracy or meritocracy, old money or new money, it is simply about cool. And today, there is no stronger currency.

So they could be anywhere, London, New York or Paris, and in any of those cities they would still have the lifestyle leverage to sizzle in society. Yet they choose to be here.  They are a generation that understands the lingua franca that is pop culture, but add the titillating taps of a tabla; a group that dresses in Dior and DSqaured, Lanvin and Louboutins, but infuses their style with eastern ethnicity. They slip easily and creamily into the cracks between East and West. And it’s in that space where they shine. Of course, the instinct is to just dismiss it all as the empty gestures of the glamorous – a lot of sass with no substance. But this is the noughties… sass sells.

While our power players try and prove the value of big Arab business, our politicians doggedly defend our policies to a suspicious international audience, and our great thinkers bemoan the demise of a nation, these easy breezy kids are casually, nonchalantly and cheekily pulling the spotlight into and onto this country. So that our story no longer becomes one of burkas and Bin Laden but rather, well, The Beautiful People. And that’s not a bad first impression to have to make.  So we have producer Ahmed Fahmy and DJ Samba, whose recent Arabian remix of Shakira’s She Wolf is now storming up the global music charts. Fashion designer Heba Elawadi whose work has just appeared in Vogue and Ayman Baky whose Cairo-based hotspot Tamarai appears in Wallpaper magazine next month. And then there’s Ahmed Ganzoury, the extravagant events organiser who has spent the last few weeks being filmed by a leading French TV station for a documentary about the parties, people and places that define Cool Cairo. There’s the luscious Lara Scandar, who is being chased by the big-wigs in La La Land eager to promote her as the first Egyptian pop princess, and Hana Elawadi whose Arab inspired jewellery designs with their quirky cultural references are selling everywhere from London to Lebanon. Finally, Farah, who as PR Director of the Fairmont Nile City, was chosen to be the fresh face and personality of a brand charged with becoming the ultimate representation of a cutting-edge new Cairo to the world.

So now that we have set the scene, understood its enticement and excitement, with all its prettiness and pitfalls, let’s take a closer look at our eight…

Ahmed Ganzoury. Born into the world with a big surname, he is entitled to languish in his legacy. Instead he parties. Of course, that too is an old society story: the international playboy, fuelled by his family’s money, wanders the world worshipping the unholy trinity of sex, drugs and rock n’roll. But Ganzoury does it differently, he creates parties, provides a platform for the late-night whirls and whorls of others. One day, soon after he graduates, he throws a party on his rooftop. He gives it a scandalous name. He bestows it with a theme and infuses it with his extravagance and eccentricities. People come. Perhaps they are bored; of dinner parties and hastily thrown together house parties, of hotel bars and clubs that lack sex-appeal. So they come, the pretty and the powerful, the great and the gregarious. And it is good. It is more than good, it is special. And, in truth, who really knows why and how and when these things work. Because at the heart of ‘cool’ – as with ‘It’ – there is always an elusiveness that powers the impact. But people talked – the right people – and when that happens, you are on the brink of becoming ‘Beautiful.’ More parties followed, bigger and better.  There were go-go dancers, bare shimmering skin soaking up the spotlight, and a vortex of music and mayhem, lights, love, and lust, and all the things that make that world go round. He is the creator of that universe, so he calls it By Ganz. And somewhere along the line we simply stop heading to Western shores just to party.  It is our turn now. The DJs, and singers, professional dazzlers and dancers – from London, New York, Paris and Ibiza – want to come to Cairo or El Gouna on New Year’s Eve and the North Coast in the summer, so that they too can party By Ganz.

Heba Elawadi and Hana Eawadi. Their daddy’s cool and their mama’s good-looking. A life between London and Cairo beckons. They both get a head start: resources are at their disposal, money and big ideas. But they must fight against petty presumptions.  They are too easily dismissed. Run along now and play at being daddy’s little girls.  But Heba has outsized dreams that she refuses to outgrow. She wants to dress the world’s Beautiful People, the ones on TV and in the movies. She wants to move among them. She thinks, ‘What do they have, that I don’t?’ But people mock. She wants to go the Oscars. She studies fashion, she bides her time. And then one day, you open up a magazine, and there she is, with Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, with the Bekchams and The Beautiful People, the ones on TV and in the movies. And you can’t for the life of you figure out how she’s done it. Ahh, there you go: once again, that elusiveness. It’s just her moment, the right place, the right something; a spark and a spirit that attracts people to her and propels those people to take her under their wing. At first she simply seemed to be a product of the famous persons she had come to know, but once you’re standing in the spotlight, you’ve still got to perform. And that’s exactly what she did. She was savvy, she sucked the life out of every second, using it, working it, wrapping it around her little finger. She said to herself, ‘You will know me for my work and not simply because I sashay amongst you.’ And then, it happens. One day you open up a magazine, and there they are, Lindsay Lohan and Mary-Kate Olsen, and countless a Beautiful Person wearing her designs, wearing Hebz. And then she goes to the Oscars.

And what of Hana? The beautiful social butterfly, who, at first, one assumes has settled into the background of Heba’s starry success. But then, she surprises you, she’s weaving her cultural heritage into dazzling designs, and everywhere you look, her signature jewellery pieces are sparkling on slender wrists and nestled in shimmering necklines. And suddenly no fashionista’s collection is complete without a Hana Elawadi design. She decides to get married… in London. Overnight Cairo seemingly empties out. The bold and the beautiful – from silver screen stars to silvery moguls – descend upon her British country home. For one night only, all of our Bright Young Things have come together in a foreign land… for her. Why? Because, that’s just how ‘It’ works.

Ayman Baky. He goes to the hottest clubs; he parties with the prettiest people. He works in marketing and music, for Sony and Virgin. Whether it makes him popular or he makes them popular is irrelevant. He’s not happy. He wants The Beautiful People to come to him… he wants to own a club, lounge, restaurant or bar. He manoeuvres into position, pulls in the right people. He opens White. It is small but wonderful. And then it falls apart. Why? Ahh, when will you learn not to ask? This is the way of that world. The powers that be disagree or the Beautiful buy into something, and then in their ferocious fickleness fall out of love with it. He is devastated but undeterred. He expands his repertoire, renovates lush locale L’Aubergine, and then launches a property company – Ethos. But he cannot quash his quiet dream of a space where the sexiness, sultriness and sizzle of city-nights can exist only by the force of his own imagination. He hears of a location, it is big and bountiful and risky. If he builds it, will they come? He has fallen before, so he is unafraid, this is ‘It’, his moment. He joins with others who share his vision, and Tamarai is born, bursting into the world, onto the scene and into the lives of the luscious with a force never before seen. And suddenly, it as if there was no other space left in the city for the social set. They refuse to go elsewhere, the existence of other party spots receding in their collective memories. They dress, they dine, dazzle and dance, and they do it under his roof by his rules. The Beautiful People come to him.

Hany Sadek or rather Dj Samba. At 16 he starts to spin. The lure of the turntables and the bright lights, the idea that you alone can control the spirit of the crowd, make them soar and take flight; a puppeteer playing with their movements, emotions and excitement. So he practiced and he played. And the coolest clubs called on him. And suddenly we all knew him; we spoke of him, wanted him to play at our parties, shape our nights and define our memories. He takes to the stage with the world’s biggest DJs, the Shapeshifters, Freemansons, Spencer & Hill, Junior Jack, many more. He tours the world on behalf of the best clubs, Hedkandi, Matine Group, many more. And then he teams up with another of our ‘It’ people, Ahmed Fahmy, award-winning radio programming director and cutting-edge television producer. Together, they found Electrum Records, the very first house music production label to come out of Cairo. They want to change our world, one tune at a time. Along with international vocalist Peyton, they release their first single, the 100% original Electro House track dubbed Streets of Cairo. It is an overnight sensation. It plays in hotspots across the world, and the international cool cognoscenti are introduced to a Cairo they never even knew existed. And then it happens. Shakira. What? Yes, Shakira herself handpicks Samba and Fahmy’s ‘Sphinx’ remix of her single She Wolf to re-release to the world. And we begin to see – Cairo is cool.

Which brings us to Farah Elalfy and Lara Scandar. Well their society stories are just beginning, but it is best to be prepared, to take note. Lara has a voice. As a child she sings, she writes songs, she waits. She is pretty and privileged; she speaks French and English and an Arabic that’s cracked around the edges. She goes to Los Angeles to record her music.  Daddy funds her, but in her mind, the money is just leverage; it’s the talent that’s going to prove her worth as one of the wonderful.  ‘Just you wait,’ she thinks. She is 18, she sings, and waits. She spots her space. Star Academy. A Lebanese TV talent contest? It doesn’t quite fit, not for her type, but she’ willing to squeeze herself in… eager to mould herself into her moment. She auditions, she sings only in English. They try and deter her, she insists. She has a plan. She wants the world to hear her voice, not just the Middle East. She wants to sing on MTV, and take a cool new Cairo to the masses. She cannot do that if she sings in Arabic. Of course, Star Academy loves her, they know that with her beauty and her background she is going to sell.  The show airs, she is a sensation, and is aptly dubbed Princess Lara. She gets into the finals, hundreds and thousands of people across the region youtube her each day. She is about to shoot her first music video in Los Angeles. She is no longer waiting.

Farah is the surprise, a recent revelation. She was once the quiet one, with her picture-perfect poise and cool blonde demeanour. She comes from elegant breeding brim-full of classy encounters. She takes a day job, first as a well-heeled lifestyle editor and then as a pretty PR girl.  But then The Fairmont Nile City comes to town; a haute hotel and dazzling destination, designed to become a Mecca for all that is fresh and fabulous; a bastion for a new sort of Cairo.  So one day you visit this new hotel, and you discover a sleek and sophisticated blonde dressed to impress, cutting a swathe of sexiness as she strides through the soaring spaces in her stilettos. She has emerged from her cocoon and has been chosen to represent. Why? Because they saw her, and simply knew that she was ‘It’.

So we have showcased eight, skimmed over the surface of their stories; but there are more and there is more. And this is their moment, their time to shine. To show the world a new face of Cairo – to prove that beyond the media-fuelled fray there is fabulousness. A bright, shiny world where the cliché rings tantalisingly true – anything is possible. This city is experiencing a renaissance. And these kids, with their cool currency, big dreams and refusal to abide by tradition are the reason. What is ‘It’?

This, boys and girls, is ‘It’.