With Amina Khalil, Malak El Ezzawy and Dina Said fast becoming household names, Egypt’s fashion industry is coming of age. “Every day we witness the success of more Egyptian designers, models and talent,” says Shirley Shalaby, founder of the country’s first modeling institute. “This should lead to [a boom] in the fashion industry.”
Amid the glam and glitter, an underdeveloped, but vital, component of a high-end fashion industry is becoming exposed — models. It remains to be seen over the next few years if Egypt’s relatively limited modeling industry is ready to raise the bar in tandem with our local designers.
For Hassan Hassan, contributing editor at eniGma magazine, it’s a long road ahead. “We only really started to have a fashion industry around six or seven years ago, with the introduction of stores like Beymen and then the actual creation of a high street. Before that there was very little need for models in every regard,” he says.
With the success of local fashion designers, department stores and niche fashion boutiques, there seems to be more of an interest in fashion and modeling, he adds. But there is still not enough to go around, with the same few models being used in almost every fashion spread and ad. “Fashion is very dependent on changing faces and different styles,” says Hassan. “We have trouble finding different models, or even versatile ones, and there are very few agencies to go through.”
Walking the Walk
As an industry, the local modeling scene has been trying to take off for more than taken 20 years. Shalaby, arguably Egypt’s pioneer in the world of modeling as we know it today, established the En Vogue modeling school in 1990 with classes on catwalk poise, etiquette and communication for models and others wishing to enhance their self-image. Shalaby has trained a host of models, including former model Engy Aly, now famous for hosting the talk show Ya Mesaharny. But the fashion industry evolved to require more than girls who could balance books on their heads.
In 1998 Youssef Spahi founded Face to Face, Egypt’s first full-fledged modeling agency, after studying fashion design and working as a professional model in Milan and Miami. At first, Face to Face organized beauty pageants in Egypt, but in 2004 the agency realized how much potential the industry had and started to work more with high-end fashion and prepare models for the international market. Face to Face scouts potential models and helps them create the right look, walk and portfolio (also called the model’s ‘book’). The agency then helps them land high-end gigs locally and internationally.
“The concept of a modeling agency is a lot more important than just getting jobs for models,” says Spahi. “It’s about marketing the models, training them, helping them to create the perfect portfolios and a name in the market.”
Casting agencies, such as Dubai-based Talent Casting Agency, are the main avenue for hiring and providing models in Egypt. A casting agency’s sole function is to scout for models and actors and find them jobs. According to Spahi, making money for models is their only concern. More models are willing to forgo work on their technique and portfolio for money, thinking that a higher-paying job is the one that works best for their books.
“In the beginning, a model shouldn’t care about the money as much as the quality,” says Spahi. “It’s important to have a good agent to assist the model in selecting work, and this is where the casting agencies affect my job negatively.”
Waleed Sokkar, an Egyptian professional model in Belgium, says his short-lived modeling career in Egypt made him realize how immature the industry is here. “We’re still a little bit behind in terms of professionalism and business ethics — how things are done, relationships between agents and models’ happiness and all sorts of issues that I feel Europe’s agencies have had years of experience in,” he says.
According to Sokkar, there aren’t enough venues available in Egypt to teach models form, posture and technique. “Modeling is the subtle difference of how one person can tell you a whole story through their eyes, while another can look blank and lost like they don’t belong in the picture,” he explains.
Shalaby adds, “A model is required to have a certain individuality and a high degree of discipline. Models are required to have a certain presence on the catwalk beside possessing the look and the physical requirements.”
Not Just Catwalk Concerns
But good models aren’t all we lack. Hussein Shaaban, one of Cairo’s top photographers and a partner in LimeLight Studio, says that there are very few of the industry professionals, including photographers, needed to make high-end fashion photography happen.
“Fashion photography doesn’t exist in Egypt,” says Shaaban. “People [are] trying, but we lack designers, stylists, models, hair stylists [and] make up artists.”
Danya Sherif, one of the most prominent faces of Egyptian modeling, couldn’t agree more. “You may have a great a photographer but a terrible model,” she notes. “A great make-up artist but terrible lighting.”
Sherif had her first experience in modeling at the age of 16 when she did a few small jobs in Egypt. Two years later, after Sherif moved to Canada to study, one of her friends encouraged her to try her hand at modeling.
“She booked me an appointment with an agency owner,” Sherif recalls. “I went and did a shoot and they liked the pictures, then it sort of snowballed from there.”
Sherif moved to New York where Wilhelmina Models snapped her up; she later signed with London’s Premier Model Management of Naomi Campbell and Claudia Schiffer fame. Once back in Egypt, her phone ringing off the hook with modeling gigs lulled her into a false sense of security about the industry.
“I really thought I was going to bring something great to the table. But I had a lot of bad experiences,” she says. “You should have a team, but there isn’t a team. It’s about having good photographers, good make-up artists, good fashion stylists. It has to all come together.”
That’s why Dina Said, the creator of fashion line Nana’s Closet, which showed in London’s fashion week this year, thinks that models aren’t the ones to blame.
“Models globally are regarded as a vital ingredient to the success of a brand’s image and are paid highly. In Egypt, on the other hand, brands would much rather use either a celebrity or an extremely well known model,” says Said. “This old-school way of thinking, I think, stifles the industry’s development.”
The young designer doesn’t mind hiring a model who is just a beginner. “I have even used girls who have zero experience in modeling,” she says. “I find that with a little direction and help, their inexperience and shyness results in something natural and interesting to look at.”
Twenty-three-year-old model and aspiring actress Menna Hussein has worked with Insight Magazine on two fashion photo shoots and appeared in several TV commercials. Like many Egyptian models, Hussein is pursuing modeling only as a stepping stone on her path to being an actress. “The modeling industry here is very unorganized, unfortunately,” she says, “and mainly depends on TV commercials, which are extremely exhausting and unplanned.”
Although Hussein is extremely cautious when choosing the right ad or photo shoot, she still runs into problems. “They’re usually not punctual.
[The crew] and directors may show up hours late. You may wait for six hours to just start shooting,” she says. “And sometimes after all this waiting, the shooting might end up being canceled for the day.”
But there is more to the issue than just having the right components all coming together. EniGma’s Hassan believes that the local fashion industry may not be thriving enough to create a professional market. “How many magazines are there? How many brands are there to represent?” he asks. And while he agrees the industry is growing, he notes that it hasn’t yet reached the levels enjoyed by neighboring countries such as Lebanon and the UAE.
“Dubai is good in the sense that everything from the international fashion arena exists and is available and usually for cheaper than other countries around the world,” Hassan says, “So magazines and anything editorial can literally all be imported.”
From a fashion perspective, Egypt doesn’t have quite as many local designers to create a thriving market for models and others in the industry as a whole. “Lebanese designers have really developed their craft and become masters of fashion. One simply has to look at the likes of Elie Saab and Zuhair Murad,” Hassan adds. “They are the Arab fashion scene, from a local and international perspective. [As a result], younger designers have really had to step their game up to live up to that image. Beirut is our Paris.”
Breaking the Cultural Barriers
The problem for models, however, may be even more deeply rooted. Photographer Shaaban believes Egyptians may not be entirely ready for the burgeoning fashion industry, with underlying cultural issues hindering a model’s ability to work.
“The culture is affecting the industry. It’s really hard to make Egyptian [female] models work outside of Egypt and be moving around from country to country constantly. Not all parents give permission for that,” Spahi says. “Most models lack the freedom to stay away from their homes for long.”
And while modeling has come a long way since En Vogue’s establishment, it is still perceived by many families as an inappropriate profession for women. “The majority of the society view [female] models as loose. When I find the models with the right measurements, many refuse because their boyfriends or fathers won’t allow it,” says Spahi. This gives the founder of Face to Face limited choices, especially when it comes to finding a model with the perfect height — starting at 175 centimeters in London and New York — which can prove challenging because most Egyptian women are somewhat petite, he says.
Even Shalaby feels there are still miles to go before modeling is accepted as a respectable profession. A model is more that a pretty face, she says: It’s an attitude and a lifestyle, one that is misunderstood or ignored by the Egyptian culture.
As a designer, Said too observed that social norms are certainly a constraint on the industry. “Social and cultural barriers most definitely come into play. I do not think many parents in Egypt would allow their daughters into the field, which is very unfortunate.”
Sherif feels this first-hand. “It’s different to be on a billboard in Canada or New York than it is to be on a billboard in Cairo. As an example, the other day my friend’s driver recognized me on a billboard, and I felt embarrassed,” says Sherif. “I don’t want to expose myself in that way because of the make-up of the society here, they don’t understand it.”
Models all over the world have a difficult time breaking away from the idea that modeling is entirely about the model’s physical look and more about a greater art form. “The artistic aspect of modeling was the part that was fun for me,” says Sherif, “the composition; the concepts. You’re a part of art.”
Success Ahead
If players in the fashion industry agree about anything, it is that there is great hope for the industry to grow in many ways.
Not only have local designers found their way onto the fashion scene, more high-end stores have appeared throughout the country, opening the door to diverse collections from stores like H&M, Zara and TopShop.
“A lot of the models’ friends began designing clothes, and another friend would do the styling, another would take pictures,” says Hassan. “I think it’s one of those things where a lot of societal taboos finally broke down and girls were finding themselves and taking their friends a long for the ride.”
Sherif is of the same mind. “I truly believe in [Amina K.]. I’ve done all of her campaigns. She is training herself in a way that fits international standards. She is doing it professionally, with a theory, with a concept, with a keen understanding of fashion.”
Despite the issues, the modeling industry is taking shape in its own way in Egypt as most players begin to find their footing. “We need to create an industry. If you ask me right now, I say we get by, but with a lot of difficulty,” Hassan says. “I think we’re on the right path, we just need to push ourselves — and our boundaries — a little.” et
