Our Story
My "Kids Apparel in Arabic" Project
The idea of designing and manufacturing kids’ clothes with Arabic writings on them came as part of a bigger dream project thru which I bring Arabic language, words, proverbs, music, and culture back to become a part of our kids’ daily lives. Today, most of what Arab kids wear, watch, sing, play, decorate, and celebrate with comes in English or other western languages like French, Spanish or Italian. Arabic is not as present as I wish for it to be.
The Kids Apparel in Arabic project taps into one aspect of reviving Arabic in kids' daily lives, so they can continue to wear their modern trendy clothes but with an Arabic flavor to them.
I worked with a few talented fashion designers from different parts of the world to develop a few trendy and fun designs for our kids from the age of 3 months and up to the age of 14 years old. Some of my styles were made with eco-love using organic and sustainable fabrics & materials and were manufactured in India. Other styles were manufactured in Egypt using its great Egyptian cotton.
I wanted to be creative in the way these styles displayed Arabic, so my tops, overalls, pants, leggings, skirts, dresses, shirts, t-shirts, jackets, hoodies, cardigans, and rompers, were designed fashionably, with some Arabic revealed somewhere on the garment. Some styles came with embroidery, while others came with print, some had tiny Arabic fonts while others had them big, and each of them showed the Arabic in different areas be it front, back or side of the garment.
I aimed to design the styles showing our classical Arabic as well as some famous phrases and sayings from our spoken Arabic coming from different songs and dialects from the various Arab Cultures, such as Saudi, Syrian, Egyptian, Lebanese, Palestinian, etc.
In addition to fashion and style, I tried to make my styles as comfortable as possible so that kids, and not only parents, love them too!
The story behind "Ein Ghein"
I had my nephews and niece before I had my own children, and they were and still are like my own. Their parents, their nannies and the whole family (including me) spoke to them in English. And the same applied to most people around us. The idea of speaking to children in English in our society (in Saudi and other Arab countries) was increasingly becoming common among parents and even grandparents...! Today, we often see many Arab kids who are not comfortable speaking in Arabic, and are much more comfortable in English, which is indeed a "fun" and "easy" language. But why has Arabic become increasingly missing among our kids?
I grew up in a home where we only spoke Arabic, and I went to an Arabic/ French school. The songs I heard and the cartoons I watched as a child were all in Arabic (cartoons were dubbed), and the movies/ shows I watched in my teen years were also Arabic (Egyptian/ Syrian/ Kuwaiti) and the Arabic music was always great to hear. The same applied to most of my friends and schoolmates, and we found it all to be entertaining, enjoyable, and fun. There was no satellite TV or laptops or I-pads or smart phones; national TV (in Saudi or any other Arab country we visited); was mostly offering Arabic content, to kids and adults.
I had my first child (son) in 2010; Hatem. When I tried to find him things to watch online or on DVDs, I found that the Arabic was very limited and has not really evolved since my childhood with very limited or uninteresting options, and that the English (like Baby Einstein, Barney, Sesame Street, Shawn the Sheep, etc.) was a lot nicer and more appealing to kids. I felt the need to find him nice Arabic cartoons and cool songs to listen to and enjoy just like I did when I was his age, but showing him old Arabic shows/ songs that I watched was not matching the quality he felt in the new English shows and clips (the picture, the colors, the songs were far better). So I felt the urge to want to start some project in that area of animation and music for kids.
Then I had my second child (daughter) in 2012; Haifa, and I had the same struggle. The idea of making Arabic cool and appealing to our kids continued to grow in my mind with more areas to think of. So, in addition to Arabic cartoons and kids’ songs, I started thinking about kids' party supplies and kids' room accessories to be in Arabic!
In 2019, I had my third child (daughter); Ghaida. When I was planning for her 1st birthday in 2020, I looked online for party supplies with “Donuts” on them, and I found a variety of great options for Donut party supplies and lovely clothes with cute comments for the birthday girl and her family members, all in English. At this point, the idea of bringing Arabic into our kids clothing came to me, to add to my previous ideas (Arabic cartoons, songs, books, party supplies, room accessories).
The conclusion I came to over the years was that; in addition to the fact that Arabic for many families was not the first communication language they had with their kids, another main problem was that Arab kids did not see or hear Arabic in their daily lives; it has been missing from different aspects of their day especially entertainment, fashion and lifestyle, and it needs to come back in a cool, appealing and fun way. Kids' clothes rarely contain Arabic; their stationaries and school bags don’t have Arabic; the books they love to read are not in Arabic; their movies and shows on YouTube, Apple TV, and Netflix are not in Arabic; their songs are not Arabic; their games and apps are not Arabic, and their toys are not in Arabic!
In early 2021, I worked with a great consultant who took me thru helpful steps to organize my countless ideas and further develop my project until I had to choose 2 areas to focus on: and those were kids apparel and cartoons/ songs.
I hope that one day I will be able to tap into the other areas where Arabic should be more present.
