Welcome to another issue of Bespoke. Once again we’ve introduced a number of evolutionary changes, including a bold new masthead, a revamped contributor page and a number of minor tweaks. As you’ll have noticed over the years, we like to introduce change step by step because we adhere to the belief that in publishing, as in life, we are either progressing or going backwards; there’s no such thing as remaining stationary.
This issue is a brilliant one and it centres on a fresh and challenging theme. Our creative energies had to pull together to tackle a premise rather close to our hearts – the Offbeat – or as we like to think “the art of doing things differently.”
The excerpt of a quote by the Russian-American author Ayn Rand is incorporated into one of the features later in the magazine but I wanted to include what she said in full, as it perfectly encapsulates what we are attempting to do. “I am an innovator. This is a term of distinction, a term of honour, rather than something to hide or apologise for. Anyone who has new or valuable ideas to offer stands outside the intellectual status quo. But the status quo is not a stream, let alone a 'mainstream'. It is a stagnant swamp. It is the innovators who carry mankind forward.”
The innovators and innovations within this issue are many and varied but those who hail from the Middle East present the hope that our region can be carried forward too. There’s Khaled Yafi, a Lebanese F&B entrepreneur who figured he could take on the Ocean Sprays and Tropicanas of this world. Dawid Dawod, an Iraqi-Swede industrial designer who is attempting to reinvent any and every object he sees. There’s Sultan Al Darmaki, who dared to be the first Emirati to design footwear for women. There’s Larissa Sansour, a courageous Palestinian artist who refuses to be constrained by stale thinking or the foibles of the establishment. There’s Reem Alasadi, an Iraqi fashion designer, who’s famously breathing new life into vintage garments. And finally, there’s Rad Hourani a Jordanian-Syrian fashion designer who has literally thrown out the rulebook to design clothes that are sex-less and season-less.
The conclusion we hope you draw from all this is that you mustn’t dare to be different, rather you must dare to be yourself. After all, we are all born unique individuals, let’s not end up as copies of one another. Enjoy our issue.
