EGYPT HAS MORE TO OFFER30-JULY-2026
2 Min Read
Over the last few months, several campaigns and stories have emerged from the streets of Cairo.
Fashion shoots, editorials and lifestyle campaigns that all feel raw and energetic; each a different take on a similar idea, executed with varying degrees of depth.There is genuine appeal in that language, and it has produced compelling work. But when it becomes the dominant output, it begins to unintentionally place Egypt into a box. One that, from an international perspective, starts to feel like the whole picture, when in reality it is a fraction of what Egypt can be.
Egypt holds more than what's being made as of late. Its Coptic heritage, Islamic architecture, the landscape shifts from the Delta to Nubia, the lesser-documented communities and spaces that exist far outside of what has already been framed. All of it remains largely untouched as creative territory. The productions that find their way there tend to share something in common: the people behind them are genuinely integrated into what they are working with. Not arriving at a culture or a history from the outside, but approaching it with real knowledge and the kind of expertise that only comes from being embedded in the environment. That integration is what separates work that feels original from work that feels derivative; it is the difference between a location that is used and one that is understood.
For creatives who emerged from the streets of Cairo, such as Mohamed Sherif, the streets are more than a source of inspiration; it’s his home and the launch pad of his career. On Lack of Guidance x New Balance for instance, we worked as the local producers alongside Mohamed Sherif as the local director. With the aim of this production being to capture the true essence of football and its enduring culture in Egypt’s streets, Mohamed Sherif brought a sense of realness not through research, but through actually being in-touch with this world himself. The locations, the culture, the energy that runs through that project are part of his everyday life in Egypt and that familiarity is felt in the work in a way that is difficult to articulate but immediately resonant.
While Cairo’s streets, just like the Pyramids of Giza, will undoubtedly remain a source of inspiration for both local and international creatives, Egypt as a whole is buzzing with untapped and unseen potential. Every project that goes looking for it, that invests in the research and that works with people who truly know the territory, contributes to a wider and more accurate perception of what Egypt is and what it can be on a global level.