By the same people who brought you Zafir T-shirts, last September witnessed the soft opening of Studio Zafir, which offers an electric mix of accessories, art pieces, products, books, music, film and fashion, all under one roof. The main purpose of this soft opening is to announce the existence of the Studio and to encourage product designers to actually realize their ideas and turn them into finished products. Noha Zayed, one of the founders explains “our concept is to blur the lines between art and product by featuring a selection of objects by designers and artists and helping them market their creations in Egypt and the Middle East”. Zayed and her fellow founders Nada Abdel Salam and Ahmed Kamel intend to “maintain accessibility to product through reasonable pricing”. Studio Zafir is working with various creators from various fields as well as developing its own private label. Zafir will create products, projects and events in collaboration with designers and artists.
During the soft opening, Lebanese jewelry designer Zinab Chahine was present to launch her new collection of accessories, along with charm bracelets and other accessories especially for the event. Other showcased products included Drumstick Designs, Boho Sharqi, Hany Mahfouz Designs, Kameleon products, Shibshibi, jewelry by Eman El-Banna, visual arts by Mohamed Gaber and designs by Mohamed Nabil Labib. Studio Zafir also sells CDs by independent music labels such as Eka3, 100 Copies, and Mastaba. Other designers displaying their products included Eslam Aboul Enein, TJ Quinn, Sherine Abdel Rassoul, and Madleine Diab. Publications in display include comic books like Toktok and Autostrad as well as magazines such as Brownbook, Awesome, Al-Rawi, Discord, and Zambalita. Studio Zafir also sells original retro posters of old Egyptian films. Zafir hopes to become a platform for Egyptian artists and designers and showcase more of Egypt’s creative talents.