Dazed Media and ITP Media Group has launched Dazed MENA, the region’s first youth-community focused fashion, style, and culture magazine, with a team of homegrown creative talent at the helm.
The announcement outlined an ambitious vision for Dazed MENA with stories from across the SWANA region and beyond.
Dazed MENA announces key appointments
Ahmad Swaid has been appointed as Dazed MENA’s Editor-in-Chief. Swaid, previously Content Director at Dazed Media and most recently Editor-in-Chief of GQ Middle East, brings a wealth of experience to the role.
Swaid expressed his enthusiasm for the role, stating that leading the brand in the region was “an honour and a dream come true.”
“We’re living in an age where the systems we once had faith in have failed us, and truths are coming to light. As the global power balance continues to shift, creativity is our most important resource to redefine what’s possible and inspire our communities. Creativity is our ultimate mode for liberation. Our inaugural issue reflects just that: our imagination and our realities,” Swaid said.
The Dazed MENA team is further strengthened by a lineup of talented creatives handpicked by Swaid.
Omaima Salem, a Paris-based French Egyptian stylist and creative consultant, will take on the role of Fashion Director, bringing her unique aesthetic that transcends traditional fashion boundaries.
Chndy is joining the team as the Creative Director. This multidisciplinary artist from Oman, based between Dubai and Riyadh, brings a wealth of experience in art direction and filmmaking.
Sarra Alayyan, a Palestinian-Jordanian writer and researcher with a passion for visual and material cultures, will step into the position of Deputy Editor.
Rounding out the core team is Fady Nageeb, an Egyptian journalist deeply rooted in the region’s music industry, who will assume the role of Content Director.
These appointments represent a diverse group of talented individuals from across the MENA region, each bringing unique perspectives and experiences to their roles.
The Covers
NOT YOUR SAINT Shot in Berlin by Davit and styled by Dogi, this story subverts the idea of celebrity by re-examines symbols of popular culture through the alter ego of Marwan Abelhamid as he speaks to his longtime friend Dazed MENA Deputy Editor Sarra Alayyan.
AFGHAN GIRLHOOD Rare, first-person conversations with young women in Kabul —an unparalleled perspective that unveils the resilience and creativity of those rewriting their futures in unimaginable circumstances.
WATHEK TO THE WORLD Founder of streetwear label Precious Trust is photographed by Dazed MENA Creative Director, Chndy, to delve into the man, the myth and the legend that is Wathek Allal.
SURF AND SOUL Discover how a surf subculture in Sri Lanka became a quiet rebellion for the next generation shot by Bharat Sikka and styled by Nell Kalonji.
BOUNDLESS: PARKOUR IN GAZA Ramallah-based photographer and writer Maen Hammad speaks to the parkourists using their bodies as vessels of liberation, leaping over the rubble as they assert their right to movement despite everything trying to stop them.
GIRLS ON WHEELS Photographer and artist Lea Colombo travels to Ethiopia to document the girl skateboarding phenomenon sweeping the streets, with styling by Hanna Kelifa.
NEMAHSIS ON HER TERMS Creative directed and captured by Ibrahem Hasan for her debut cover, Palestinian-Canadian singer Nemahsis spills the tea with poet Safia Elhillo.
SOWING HOPE In Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, one Syrian family’s work with seeds is grounding a new generation, documented by Gabriel Ferneini with words by Nur Turkmani.
HOLD THE LINE Pascale Gambarte and Dazed MENA Fashion Director Omaima Salem team up with models Nazarit and Peris to shoot in the Paris suburbs on models Nazarit and Peris.
The Features
- TH3 FUTUR3 OF L@NGU@G3 Dee Sharma unravels the transformation of language in our digital age, examining the effects of algorithms and computer linguistics on how we communicate with one another in 2024 and beyond.
- NOTHING IS SILLY TO MERIEM BENNANI In her latest exhibition, For My Best Family, the common denominator of humankind amounts to flip-flops and a 35-year-old jackal, and it’s both fantastic and absurd, prodding the core of us all.
- PARIA FARZANEH: FRIENDS AND FAMILY From her studio in London, English-Iranian designer Paria Farzaneh styles and shoots her community as they wear her archival and upcoming collections. At the same time, she speaks with Caroline Issa about the trappings of the industry and how fashion is best left unfiltered.
- RUBA AND RAMDANE IN CONVERSATION Joining from opposite ends of the creative spectrum, Creative director Ruba Abu Nimah and Polymath entrepreneur Ramdane Touhami come together for the first time to discuss taste today, flipping the script on creativity and never caving on values.
- REIMAGINED SPACES Dazed MENA teams up with second-year architecture students from the American University of Sharjah to reimagine the possibilities of repurposing abandoned buildings from across the SWANA to interrogate the future of space.
- BUMPING MY RIBCAGE Photographer Émile Samory-Fofana and stylist Jenna Bey arve out a cinematic dreamscape that’s surreal and disarming – a portal reinjecting boundless imagination into fashion from a surreal corner of the world to ours.
- CHROMESTHESIA A poster visualising professor Hannah El-Sisi’s multi-media archive charting African sonic migration from the last 500 years through sound, showing the roots of the most popular music today as based in a rich history of resistance and exchange.
- KHAJISTAN ZINE A 32-page zine made by Khajistan, a platform housing the most extensive counter-culture archive from across the region. Think, an Instagram page cataloguing Iranian tattoo culture amongst underground queer communities turning to the internet for their expression, Lollywood films excavating Pakistan club culture of the 70s, archives of Palestinian websites from the early 2000s to Arabic Persian typography.
This launch comes at a time when the MENA market is projected to grow to $7.9 billion annually by the end of 2024, with almost 140 million young people aged 10-24 years making up a quarter of the region’s population.
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