CAIRO – As they walked through a luxury shopping centre in Cairo, they noticed the T-shirts depicting Superman and other foreign heroes, but they weren't impressed. They left without anything, but they did have an idea. These three young graduates decided to design their own T-shirts, using the Arabic language. “We want to preserve our Arab identity and heritage by depicting famous historical figures,” said Mohamed Mohssen, a science graduate. “We really want to spread this culture,” he told The Egyptian Gazette at an exhibition of their Made-in-Egypt T-Shirts, which runs in el-Sawy Cultural Centre, end of July 26th St., Zamalek until tonight. He stands beside a table covered in colourful cotton T-shirts on which are written phrases like ‘An Arab and proud of it', ‘Raise your head, you are Egyptian' and' Spread your wings and fly in the sky'. There is also T-Shirts depicting Saladin, the Muslim leader who defeated the Crusaders at the Battle of Hettin, leading to the recapture of Palestine, which had been seized from the Fatimid Egyptians by the Crusaders 88 years earlier. The three young graduates buy the materials for the T-shirts, while an applied arts professor has been helping them with the Arabic-language designs. “We only use the finest materials. As this project is something new for Egyptians, we want to give them the best, so that they trust us,” said Ahmed Zahran, a commerce graduate. “We know that Egyptians, unfortunately, do not trust Egyptian-made clothes. It's our culture,” he explained, pointing out that the T-shirts start from LE50. They've only been making T-shirts for two months and it's expensive to hire a shop in a shopping centre. So they've been using the social networking site Facebook to promote their wares. They've launched a page entitled ‘Ezar', which, in the future, will be the name of their brand: www.facebook.com/ezartex. You can order their T-shirts online and they'll deliver them to your home. They also participate in social events, which attract thousands of young people. “We dream of Ezar being our brand and making clothes and bags with this name,” said Zahran. “Inshallah, within five years, we'll start selling our products in other Arab countries.”
