Exclusive First Look: Beauty & The Beach

In Egypt’s burgeoning fashion scene, we have begun to see brands rolling out beautiful campaigns and shoots as the country slowly but surely starts to stand up and take notice of the sartorial side of things. The most recent style overload to emerge is a stunning collaborative seaside effort engineered by Nouran Khalifa, featuring a variety of brands, models, style bloggers, makeup artists and hairstylists that all came together for one sun-soaked shoot at Amwaj, titled Beauty & the Beach.

Realising that in her role as photographer, she also ended up playing the part of art director and stylist, and wanting to provide a push to brands and people in the fashion industry who were not heavily in the spotlight, Khalifa came up with the concept of one comprehensive shoot. “I wanted to do this shoot so I could amalgamate a lot of the clients that I’ve shot with before. And at the same time there are a lot of designers that are really talented but their social media isn’t as strong as it could be. And for me, in terms of fashion, one of the most important elements is social media. So I wanted to collect all these designers and get them all together in one shoot, to really put them in the limelight,” Khalifa explains. 

Over her career as a photographer, she naturally found herself taking charge of more than just the photography for her shoots. “As a fashion photographer, I found myself often also doing the makeup, the styling, the hair, the art direction, gathering the whole crew, deciding on the theme, and creating the whole story board… I do all these things anyway behind the scenes but no one knows about it!” she laughs, “So I thought well since I love doing all those things and being responsible for a whole shoot in its entirety, and since I do it anyway, why not take charge and create a whole shoot where I utilise all this and use it to draw together a collaborative shoot?” 

She spent the better part of a month planning the mammoth shoot, carefully curating those she wanted involved, wanting to create a mixed bag between more established names and up-and-comers. “With every aspect of the shoot, I wanted to mix it up. I chose both models and bloggers, and with the models I selected some that are just starting out but are very professional and I could see that they have a lot of potential. With the brands, some of them have a really loyal clientele but it’s their own little circle and they’re not really exposed, so I wanted to push them out of that limited circle. I mixed it up with makeup artists too, getting both Aisha Taha and Sally Rashid who are both incredibly talented.”

The task proved to be a huge undertaking, but all the involved parties were incredibly receptive about the idea of a combined photo shoot. “At first I was worried that they wouldn’t want to all be featured in one shoot together but everyone was really open to a collaborative experience and no one was selfish from that perspective and everyone needed that support,” Khalifa explains.

After getting all the pieces in place, the entire shoot was completed in a single day, and the result are some seriously breathtaking shots by the sea. “As the fashion industry develops in Egypt, People are now making more of an effort to spotlight local talents and bring them together, and I thought it was important to be a party of that,” Khalifa concludes. Take a look at the beautiful shoot below.

Art director, stylist, and photographer: Nouran Khalifa

Makeup: Sally Rashid and Aisha Taha

Hair: Kriss Beauty Salons

Models: Huda El Mufti, Ranin El Gaby, and Samarizma Kamel

Designers: Deeda Creations, Ayah Sharaf Designs, Rana Madkour Designs, and By Aya Shoukry Designs

Sponsered by Amwaj Le Ciel Beach

Location: Amwaj

Special thanks to Big Billboard