Across the past few years, it’s felt like every few months, a global media franchise launches a MENA edition — chasing a rapidly globalizing Arab culture and an ever-expanding luxury market in the Gulf.
But what does it really mean to attach the term “MENA” to these titles? Who are these magazines for — and to what end?
Salma Moussa (@mshsalma ) reports from within the sector, speaking to Dazed MENA editor-in-chief Ahmad Swaid (@ahmadaswaid ), former acting editor of GQ Middle East Rusty Beukes (@rustybeukes ), and our own Ammar Manla Hasan (@ammaro_x ), tracing perspectives behind what many see as a written media renaissance in the region.
Read the full feature through the 🔗 in bio.
Founded by Rusty Beukes @rustybeukes and Mohamed Elashy @ashyxvii , Between Us Boys @betweenusboys is first and foremost a cultural platform, documenting subcultures through collectible drops that move between publishing, fashion and storytelling.
Their latest chapter, Archive 01, explores labour, masculinity and identity across Afro, Latino, Arab and South Asian communities. Built around heavyweight T-shirts, worn-in caps, brushed silver jewellery and a 40-page collectible zine, it feels less like a collection and more like a living narrative.
Gender-neutral and intentionally open in format, it exists somewhere between a capsule, an archive and a cultural document.
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@betweenusboys have launched Archive 01, a capsule collection made as the starting point of an ongoing project made to preserve identities and subcultures of today.
Alongside photography and film, Archive 01 lands in the hands of its audience through a physical capsule and a collectable print supplement. Featuring familiar faces from creative communities, the drop is made to be handled, archived, and returned to.
The drop also includes a limited capsule of t-shirts, caps, and jewellery, turning the project’s ideas into objects you can wear and live with.
"The agency of the future won’t sell campaigns; it will build cultural systems, and ideas designed to live across platforms, moments and time," says HAVAS Red ME's Rusty Beukes.
Read the full article on the link in bio.
"Audiences are tired of authenticity. Not authenticity itself, but the performance of it. They’re tired of watching it get staged. The same old references, dressed up as something new. Audiences aren’t just sitting back anymore. They speak branding like it’s their second language. And with all this knowledge at hand, they are quicker to spot the cues and call out hidden (the obvious and not so obvious) agendas," Beukes says.
Partnering with @Patron on La Hacienda at @SoleDXB . This is where the region’s sound comes together. Pull up! And tell your friends too.
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