Culture, fashion and lifestyle visionary
Dubai-born Egyptian Shehab Hamad has little to be downbeat about on turning 30, having packed in a long list of achievements before this age, including winning a Lloyds TSB Entrepreneurial Start-Up Of The Year Small Business Award in 2006. Recognised as one of Dubai’s foremost culture, clubbing, fashion and lifestyle entrepreneurs, Hamad has applied the same flexible, multi-tasking approach to the development of his career as he has to his projects.
“Call me what you want,” says Hamad, when we ask what his job title is. Whether his restlessness makes him unwilling to be pigeonholed or it is a preference for putting the project before the person, there’s no denying Hamad is a cultural groundbreaker and a creative visionary – whatever his position.
On returning to Dubai in 2002 after studying in London, Hamad and his friend Shaz Sheibani felt displaced, missing the music, art, film and fashion they had enjoyed in the West. So they decided to set up a multi-media collective – 9714 (Dubai’s telephone code) – and brought together musicians, DJs, video-makers, artists, poets and performers at mixed-media parties in dance clubs and hotels, under the banner Bidoun. Meaning “without” in Arabic, bidoun is a name applied to those without a home and to the Arab diaspora.
“Those events, curated as a reflection on a post-9/11 Middle East, are the most exciting projects I’ve initiated and the ones I’m most proud of,” says Hamad, who, with Sheibani, then started a dance club, Terminal. This brought some of the most inventive DJs to Dubai and the team expanded its programme to include live music and screenings of alternative and foreign films. Hamad later closed Terminal and opened retro-chic club iBO in its place.
In 2004, Hamad and his sister, Shahi, established Five Green, a boutique, concept store and art space, specialising in streetwear, Emirati designers, ‘zines and CDs impossible to find in Dubai, and hosting art and photography exhibitions. Hamad and Sheibani then teamed up with English expat Ben McDonald to start Kitsch22, which grew from being a distributor of fashion brands to being a specialist in fashion retailing, brand marketing, event management, public relations and design, with clients such as Estée Lauder and BMW. This led to the Small Business Award.
Their latest venture is 50°C, a hip gift store at Old Town Island near Burj Dubai. “Our business has contributed to developing Dubai,” says Hamad. “We’ve inspired those who will bring about a true cultural revolution, here and in the wider Middle East.” Not a bad legacy for someone the “wrong side of 30”.
Lara Dunston & Terry Carter; portrait by Terry Carter |
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