Cairo Pop is an Illustrator’s Love Letter to Cairo

Reinventing 1050 years of history into illustration, Cairo Pop is the local brand taking everything we hold near and dear to being a Cairene and flipping it into colourful, wearable art.

Founded by illustrator Danny Arafa, the week-old brand is a love letter to Cairo, not in its bricks, borders or walls, but through its stories, music, food and shared sense of nostalgia.

“Cairo Pop is a celebration of Egyptian culture. I’m not talking about pharaohs and pyramids and celebrities, I mean the actual culture that all Egyptians are a part of,” Arafa told CairoScene. Torshy pickles, hoopoe birds and Alem Simsim are just a few examples of these cultural motifs.

“When I was younger, I always hated buying clothes from shops because they felt so impersonal," Arafa said. "When I lived abroad in the US, I came across clothes with so many pop culture references, and that is such a fun way to start conversations with people. Wearables are much more closely associated with your identity compared to something like a poster on your wall. It's an extension of yourself.”

The brand is now up and running, and is doing deliveries all across Cairo. To shop, shoot them a message on their Instagram page.