The Graphic Edit with Nob Designs Founder Ahmed Nabil
The Graphic Edit with Nob Designs Founder Ahmed Nabil
When the statement piece is a literal statement…Ahmed Nabil's styles his iconic graphics in this edition of The Scene Selects.
It's been ten years since Ahmed Nabil launched Nob Designs, a Cairo-born label that treats language as material and the graphic tee as a public platform. What began with a few statement tops has grown into a regional fixture - worn by celebrities, style disruptors and, more crucially, by anyone who understands that clothes can speak before you do.
Nabil's signature is a kind of fashion linguistics. Whether printed with biting social commentary or phrases lifted straight from WhatsApp group chats, his pieces toe the line between wearable slogan and, well, not-so-wearable slogan.
This edition of The Scene Selects spotlights Nob's Graphic Edit - an unapologetic collection that turns everyday speech into a design language of its own. These are garments with an opinion. Less trend, more transcript. The slogans don't just decorate; they assert, provoke, and often outshine everything else in the outfit.
Iconic
'This look is all about embracing your cool self and expressing yourself to the max.
P.S. This is not for the faint of heart'
- Ahmed Nabil, Founder, Nob Designs
Top
Nob Designs | Iconic
Coat
Balmain | FW25 RTW Coat
Sunglasses
Balenciaga | Fennec Oval Sunglasses
Skirt
Miu Miu | Pleated Mini Skirt
Shoes
Nike | Ancuta Sarca Heels
Perfume
Dior | Hypnotic Poison
Iconic 2.0
Top
Nob Designs | Iconic Tee
Jewellery
Ambush | FW23 Rings
Trousers
Vetements | SS23 FTW Pants
Sunglasses
Balenciaga | 5G Sunglasses
Coat
Diesel | FW24 FTW Coat
Shoes
Saint Laurent | Wyatt Leather Chelsea Boots
Har gedan
'This look is all about being chic no matter what the weather.'
Top
Nob Designs | Har Gedan Tee
Shoes
Prada | Paillette Heels
Skirt
Dior | Galliano Victim Collection Pleated Skirt
Purse
Moschino | Champagne Bucket Clutch Bag
Glasses
Balenciaga | Swift Oval Sunglasses in Silver
Khaleek fe halk
'This look was made mainly for all the nosy people in our lives who are always trying to ask all the unnecessary questions like 'why are you wearing this, where are you going, what's going on with your personal life...etc.'
Top
Nob Designs | Khaleek Fe Halk Tee
Jewellery
Gucci | AW19 Statement Neck Piece
Schiaparelli | Half Face Mask Cuff and Ring
Shoes
Schiaparelli | FW21 RTW Heels
Trousers
Alexander Wang | Pinstripe Leather Shorts
Bag
Schiaparelli | Triple Face Anatomy Bag
Khaleek fe halk 2.0
Top
Nob Designs | Khaleek Fe Halk Tee
Trousers
Fen Chen Wang | SS25 Collection
Shoes
Kenzo | Black Patent Leather Cutout Sandals
Sunglasses
Balenciaga | FW23 Red-lens Sunglasses
Love you
'It's our very unique love letter. Basically it's the letter you send to yourself.'
Jewellery
Nado's | Gold Heart Ring
Bag
Jayda Hany | The Cupid Bag
Shorts
Jaquemus | FW23 Le Chouchou Shorts
Sunglasses
Dolce & Gabbana | Love Sunglasses
Shoes
Christian Louboutin | Lipstrass 100 Satin Patent Leather Red
Enta fain
'It's our latest capsule collection highlighting the most used words in our chat these days. We're always saying 'Enta fain' because someone's always late or lost or even MIA.'
Top
Nob Designs | Enta Fain Tee
Shoes
Maison Margiela | Tabi Many Jane Flats
Bag
Acne Studios | Baker Lips Print Tote Bag
Skirt
Daley | SS25 Skirt
Sunglasses
Chanel | 4114 Vintage Sunglasses
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Al-Ahram Weekly
2 days ago
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Monster mash - Culture - Al-Ahram Weekly
Mohamed Adel, a Nineties-born student at the Academy of Arts' Theatre Institute, is one of the most interesting up-and-coming figures on the Egyptian stage today. In an odd, cross-generational handshake, his is an ideological and spiritual extension of the Free Theatre movement of the 1990s. His works are not on the epic scale (and, for that reason, are free of the flaws) that characterised his spiritual predecessor, the late Mohamed Aboulsoud. Together with the 1990s pioneers inspired by the first CIFET festivals, Aboulsoud formed the Free Theatre Movement, and there is something in the sensibility of Adel's productions, a kind of delicacy and craftsmanship, that recalls Free Theatre pioneers who burst onto the scene in the early 1990s when slide projectors were still cutting-edge technology. Adel, not unlike the late genius, is an auteur in the mould of the Frenchman Antonin Artaud, who predicted that the director, scenographer and scriptwriter would eventually merge into one person. This can be seen in his process: selecting classic texts from the Western and Eastern canon, and producing them through the lens of his own interpretation, with a moody mise en scene and characters perennially vulnerable in their lost and lonely humanity – politics entirely optional. What is so reminiscent of Aboulsoud is that there is something of the poetry of theatre in Adel's work, something of that intangible presence that sometimes manifests between two actors conversing or a single actor at a moment of vulnerability – the greater issues thematically evoked and manifested emotionally and intellectually. One thing about truly well-crafted dramatic art – I speak here of both theatre and cinema, and perhaps narrative art in general – is that as the story progresses, the individual events, characters, and details begin to recede, making way for the audience to see dimly the larger shapes of theme and concept, like fabric-draped sculptures whose planes can be discerned if you tilt your head at just the right angle and if the light hits them just so. On its surface, The Monster — shown at the Higher Institute for Dramatic Arts' Theatre Institute International Festival — is a straightforward Victorian-era stage adaptation of both Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and, Adel states, the play of the same title written by Nick Deere, which the director translated, adapted to suit his purposes, and then put on stage. It appears at first to be a costume drama, complete with Frankenstein's spastic creation, Dr and Mrs Frankenstein, together with an odd pair: Rita, a part-time prostitute, and her blind father, who form an unlikely friendship with The Creature (who, the director is careful to note, is a 'creature' rather than a 'monster'). The twist is that Dr Frankenstein (Mina Nabil) is being interrogated on suspicion of multiple murders – dozens, if the prosecutor is to be believed. The prosecutor, Smith (Ahmad al-Ramadi), knows nothing of the creature's existence and is blaming Frankenstein for the murders, scoffing at Frankenstein's panicked protests that 'the monster did it!' Mrs Frankenstein (played with aplomb by Nevine Hossam el-Din), a cold and ambiguous collaborator, now condemns, now supports, further muddying the waters. The structure appears at first like a whodunnit: there have clearly been numerous murders committed, brutal and bloody murders, and the audience is never quite sure at the start whether Dr. Frankenstein's frantic and emphatic denials, as the prosecutor sneers at his defense of 'the monster did it', are mendacious. Is Frankenstein a murderer? Is his wife an accomplice? What happened? Who killed these people? In a choppy-montage, vignette-lit, non-linear presentation, the audience is made privy to the sequence of events, cutting between scenes of the prosecutor's interrogation of Dr and Mrs Frankenstein and flashbacks – first of Frankenstein's dubious achievement of creating a human entity and then of that creature's journey through the world. We see the creature's gradual acquisition of consciousness, of language, of some degree of morals and values. We see him discover friendship and open his heart to love; we see him struggle with his father figure's disgust and abandonment, being a target of scorn and derision, being alone in the world without a family or others who resemble him. The parallel emerges unbidden and undeniable: in his loneliness, in his grief and desolation and heartbreaking innocence, the Creature is the quintessential human; he is every one of us, in our loneliness, our vulnerability, our doubt. He is created from lightning; he seeks the love of his creator, his father figure, but is met with only coldness, cruelty, and scorn; he seeks love and is rejected; he seeks family and finds none. In an ironic misunderstanding, he finally imagines that his only friend, Rita's blind father, has betrayed him. The ironic and heartbreaking twist in the story is thatm throughout, our sympathies are with the monster (thanks to the boundless charisma of Saïd Salman). We suffer alongside him, see firsthand his genuine, poignant innocence, experience his shy and trembling attempts at love and friendship, and share his heartbreak at finding himself rejected by the one who made him. We never quite believe that he was the murderer, because we believe in his innate goodness and see within him our own humanity. We see his innocence with our own eyes: the shattering of that innocence, and of our illusions, when he strangles the good-natured friend who has never been anything but kind and loving to him, is the shocking climax of The Monster. It is in the final part of the play that we see that even the kindest and most guileless creature (us? all of us?) can be driven too far, that cruelty, violence, rejection and loneliness can transform such a creature into a monster (or was he a monster all along? the insidious question can only enhance the ambiguity), who starts by killing his best friend and then goes on a rampage, a killing spree. It is revealed in the shattering climax that the creature has even murdered Rita, the woman he is hopelessly in love with, and we see Frankenstein's doomed attempts – at his creation's insistence – to bring her back to life as he once did with the creature who loved her. The Monster could easily have devolved into sentimental bathos, but restraint rules here with an iron fist. There is no melodramatic screaming, no gratuitous tears, and even the Creature, while aware of his wretchedness, sternly shies away from self-pity. The result is a show that entirely avoids sentimentality and melodrama, and has a kind of self-contained dignity to it, one without which its themes could never shine through. Having seen this play without set and costumes in a run-through, I can say with confidence that it is the strength of the directing and the acting that makes it, far more than the low-budget set design (the Theatre Institute clearly spent the bare minimum here, to say nothing of the fact that I saw with my own eyes a senior professor striding onto the stage in an attempt to sabotage the dress rehearsal), the costumes, which were less a period reconstruction than an attempt to evoke Europeanness and past-ness with a combination of Victorian and generic poet-pirate style, and the admittedly evocative and occasionally inspired lighting. Some plays are about painting pretty pictures; some are about capturing humanity in all its hubris and pathos, and this latter function is what The Monster does. Saïd Salman, beyond his spasticity and visible battle to gain control of his body and acquire human speech and mannerisms, has a profound charisma and vulnerability that is evident despite the monstrous makeup, and might have benefited from perhaps less greasepaint. Salman has two likewise deeply charismatic foils: the young prostitute Rita (Nellie al-Sharqawi), and her blind father (Abdel-Fattah al-Deberky). The scenes between Salman and Nellie are riveting, the chemistry between them stealing the audience's hearts and minds in its tenderness and fragility. In anything like an equitable world, Nellie would be a box-office star within a few years, and likewise Salman and Deberky. The latter's scenes together are just as riveting, the only moments when the lost and lonely Creature finds human care and affection, developing into friendship and eventual tragedy. There is an acting quality that the great director Peter Brook called 'the still point' – the actor's ability to reach a neutrality that can then be inhabited by any character. Every actor on stage had this to some degree, which makes the directorial hand apparent, of course; but the show is undeniably bursting with raw talent. The Monster would, I think, have benefited from being an hour rather than an hour and fifteen minutes long; it would also have benefited from someone who could smooth out some of the clunky Arabic phrases and correct grammatical errors. Still, it is my hope that this can be remedied for the sake of a play that deserves to be shown more widely than in a festival that is 'international' only in name. It is so-called because it presents foreign ('international') texts in translation. I fervently hope that The Monster can be honed and shown again, with better resources, to an appreciative audience. Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:
CairoScene
3 days ago
- CairoScene
The Graphic Edit with Nob Designs Founder Ahmed Nabil
The Graphic Edit with Nob Designs Founder Ahmed Nabil When the statement piece is a literal statement…Ahmed Nabil's styles his iconic graphics in this edition of The Scene Selects. It's been ten years since Ahmed Nabil launched Nob Designs, a Cairo-born label that treats language as material and the graphic tee as a public platform. What began with a few statement tops has grown into a regional fixture - worn by celebrities, style disruptors and, more crucially, by anyone who understands that clothes can speak before you do. Nabil's signature is a kind of fashion linguistics. Whether printed with biting social commentary or phrases lifted straight from WhatsApp group chats, his pieces toe the line between wearable slogan and, well, not-so-wearable slogan. This edition of The Scene Selects spotlights Nob's Graphic Edit - an unapologetic collection that turns everyday speech into a design language of its own. These are garments with an opinion. Less trend, more transcript. The slogans don't just decorate; they assert, provoke, and often outshine everything else in the outfit. Iconic 'This look is all about embracing your cool self and expressing yourself to the max. P.S. This is not for the faint of heart' - Ahmed Nabil, Founder, Nob Designs Top Nob Designs | Iconic Coat Balmain | FW25 RTW Coat Sunglasses Balenciaga | Fennec Oval Sunglasses Skirt Miu Miu | Pleated Mini Skirt Shoes Nike | Ancuta Sarca Heels Perfume Dior | Hypnotic Poison Iconic 2.0 Top Nob Designs | Iconic Tee Jewellery Ambush | FW23 Rings Trousers Vetements | SS23 FTW Pants Sunglasses Balenciaga | 5G Sunglasses Coat Diesel | FW24 FTW Coat Shoes Saint Laurent | Wyatt Leather Chelsea Boots Har gedan 'This look is all about being chic no matter what the weather.' Top Nob Designs | Har Gedan Tee Shoes Prada | Paillette Heels Skirt Dior | Galliano Victim Collection Pleated Skirt Purse Moschino | Champagne Bucket Clutch Bag Glasses Balenciaga | Swift Oval Sunglasses in Silver Khaleek fe halk 'This look was made mainly for all the nosy people in our lives who are always trying to ask all the unnecessary questions like 'why are you wearing this, where are you going, what's going on with your personal Top Nob Designs | Khaleek Fe Halk Tee Jewellery Gucci | AW19 Statement Neck Piece Schiaparelli | Half Face Mask Cuff and Ring Shoes Schiaparelli | FW21 RTW Heels Trousers Alexander Wang | Pinstripe Leather Shorts Bag Schiaparelli | Triple Face Anatomy Bag Khaleek fe halk 2.0 Top Nob Designs | Khaleek Fe Halk Tee Trousers Fen Chen Wang | SS25 Collection Shoes Kenzo | Black Patent Leather Cutout Sandals Sunglasses Balenciaga | FW23 Red-lens Sunglasses Love you 'It's our very unique love letter. Basically it's the letter you send to yourself.' Jewellery Nado's | Gold Heart Ring Bag Jayda Hany | The Cupid Bag Shorts Jaquemus | FW23 Le Chouchou Shorts Sunglasses Dolce & Gabbana | Love Sunglasses Shoes Christian Louboutin | Lipstrass 100 Satin Patent Leather Red Enta fain 'It's our latest capsule collection highlighting the most used words in our chat these days. We're always saying 'Enta fain' because someone's always late or lost or even MIA.' Top Nob Designs | Enta Fain Tee Shoes Maison Margiela | Tabi Many Jane Flats Bag Acne Studios | Baker Lips Print Tote Bag Skirt Daley | SS25 Skirt Sunglasses Chanel | 4114 Vintage Sunglasses
CairoScene
6 days ago
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FYR's New Collection Weaves Sinai's Symbols into Sleek Jewelry
The Dear Sinai collection draws on local spiritual traditions rather than stylistic motifs Cairo-based jewelry house FYR has unveiled its latest capsule collection, Dear Sinai, through a Mother's Day campaign that eschews cliché in favor of depth. Titled To Your Mother, the campaign is a meditation on inheritance, not just of family or tradition, but of land, ritual, and memory. The collection's leading piece, the Ommi ring, sits at the center of this inquiry. In Arabic, ommi means 'my mother,' yet within the language of the campaign, the word opens into something broader, the motherland, the earth, the origin. The ring is a compact form of that idea, cast in 927 silver, sculptural in silhouette, and designed to carry more than ornament. For FYR founder Farah Radwan, the collection is not about adornment but transmission. 'It's not sentimental,' she says. 'It's structural and honouring what holds us.' Shot in slow, deliberate frames, the To Your Mother campaign includes a short film that opens not with youth, but with reflection. The central figure is Cherifa El Bakly, an older woman seated in a sunlit room, contemplating her reflection, an act, Radwan says, of returning to one's image, not to mourn it, but to recognize it. El Bakly's presence offers an anchor, a face that has lived, softened by time, dignified in stillness. She is shown not as a symbol, but as a subject, examining her memory of herself as beautiful, and holding space for it. Radwan says her decision to feature an older woman at the heart of the campaign was instinctive. 'There's power in allowing someone to see themselves without nostalgia,' she explains. 'It's not about looking back. It's about looking through.' The campaign, she adds, is not a tribute, but a tether, between generations, between the visible and the invisible. The Dear Sinai collection, named for the peninsula that inspires its palette and its philosophy, draws on local spiritual traditions rather than stylistic motifs. Among the pieces is the Ain ring, shaped like an eye, set with a citrine stone, and informed by shamalyagh, a protective practice historically passed from mother to daughter in parts of North Sinai. Its design is linear, sparse. Its weight is conceptual. 'You don't need to say everything for it to be understood,' Radwan says. FYR's releases are never abrupt. Pieces appear slowly, without countdowns or mass rollout. Each is accompanied by a printed card that details the history and symbolism behind the design. Radwan does not consider the collection a product line, nor does she describe it as art. 'This isn't status jewelry,' she says. 'It's memory jewelry. It carries.' Since founding FYR in 2018, Radwan has resisted trend cycles and scale. Her pieces are crafted in small batches. They are sold directly. There is no wholesale expansion planned. The collection, she says, is not about volume but about holding shape, culturally, spiritually, and personally.
