Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Tarek Chemaly x Donna Maria Feghali x Beirut Pride - the gift that keeps on giving


In 2018 I teamed up with Beirut Pride and convinced Hadi (the incredible guy behind Beirut Pride) to do a Valentine campaign under the tag #loveislove (please see the cumulative campaign here) based on the 14 stages of love in the Arabic language. The campaign - with had literally zero budget - was an unmitigated success is still being reshared to this day (fun fact: a friend tells me that a friend of his who is totally conservative shared the campaign with him not even knowing where it originated from!). Still, the campaign went to appear on the Disney Magical Pride in London via Hadi, and eventually made its way to designer Donna Maria Feghali who works under the code name Retrieving Beirut and who  transformed them into tote bags (funnily, she contacted me wanting the RGB version of the works until I explained they were done on paintbrush!). The bags which were already being sold by Retrieving Beirut are now present at The Sage Parlour - Donna-Maria is giving all profits to charity. So it is truly a worthy cause and (hair-flip!) a lovely design to begin with!