Letter from our Editor-In-Chief

I have spent most of my life surrounded by magazines. I collected them obsessively when I
was young and later built a career within them. As we mark Dazed MENA’s first anniversary, I find myself returning to the same question: what truly matters in this work?

What stories deserve to be seen, and which truths are we willing to stand behind?
I have always believed in the power of magazines. They witness our times, reflect the world,
and have the ability to shape it. The origin of this magazine you are holding, or reading
online, began in the summer of 2021. I returned to Lebanon for the first time in years and
found a reflection of myself in a community of artists, photographers, creatives, and
designers. Some of them are celebrated this year in the Dazed MENA 100 list. I texted
Jefferson Hack, convinced that the part of the world I grew up in needed its own Dazed. A
place that could hold our contradictions, archetypes, softness, hardness, and complexities. A place for the youth who stay, for the dreamers and the freaks, the ones creating in the
shadows and on the fringes. It was a space that did not exist for me when I was young, so I
set out to build it for others. That discovery is the reason Dazed MENA exists.

This year taught me what leadership truly means. I learned that I had to fight harder than I
ever have before, alongside a team who share the same values and vision. I discovered that
leadership is mostly about presence. It is about confronting shame, embracing softness, and
daring to place the most vulnerable parts of yourself into your work. Creative work is always
human. In that spirit came a rare moment. What do you do when one of the most
recognisable figures in the world reaches out asking to be on your cover?

As the project unfolded, something honest emerged. Bella Hadid appears here as herself. Photographed and interviewed by her childhood friend, Yasmine Diba and dressed in archival Michael & Hushi (please see Deputy Editor Sarra Alayyan’s remarkable feature on the legendary 90s cult icon on page 154). Revealing the losses she’s endured for always speaking up for liberation, Bella’s presence in this issue is not a celebrity moment. It is her truth. Despite having been on the covers of countless magazines, here she is for the first time, in authorship of the image of herself and her story. We gave her the reins to tell her story the way she wanted it to be told.

Valuing tradition, recognising our own work, and revisiting what still resonates is the most radical thing we can do in a culture obsessed with the new. Albums shape how we enter every issue, and this anniversary edition follows that rhythm. A greatest hits revisited, remixed, and reinvented, with a few new tracks featuring collaborations from the likes of Mona Chalabi, Saad Khan, Shahram Saadat, Sharok and Valentine Valero. At the same time, we re–shoot our Afghan Girlhood story and publish photographs taken by Gabriel Ferneini of Hammoudi and his family as they leave the Bekaa Valley to return home to Syria, both from issue 00.

What made it real were the people, the collaborators who trusted us. This magazine began
as a series of pages and pictures spanning Palestine, Ethiopia, Egypt, Kurdistan, Sri Lanka,
and beyond. It has rapidly become a meeting point, a place where ideas move freely, and
creativity is communal. And what made it real were the people, the team who built it with me, the collaborators who trusted us, the subcultures who let us into their worlds, and the
readers who saw themselves in our work. Most of all, thank you to the team who made this
all a reality worth experiencing: Sarra Alayyan, Chndy, Fatima Mourad, Omaima Salem,
Fady Nageeb, Daoud Tabibzada, Zein Karam, Zoe Zanzola and Ali Ammar. This one is for
you, and for everyone out there today who still believes in the power of magazines. Go out.
Create. Collaborate.

ALWAYS AND FOREVER

AHMAD SWAID
Editor-in-Chief