Purveyors of Taste: Recording Egypt’s Fading Ads

By Iman R. Abdulfattah

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My mother suffers from what I call positive nostalgia. She is the reminiscing type, the kind of person who enjoys recounting the “good ‘ole days” with intense passionand vigor. On one of many reoccurring occasions, she was lecturing me about the grandeur of Cairo prior to her departure for a new life in NYC in 1973; and like anyone in my position, it was difficult for me to relate to her anecdotes, primarily because I was born and raised in NYC and the Cairo that I witnessed did not resemble what she was describing. Then one day in the late 1990s, there was a revelation. I was living in Abdin and happened upon a fading advertisement on the side of a building off Talʿat Harb Street. It was an old ad (ca. mid-1940s?) for a bus company that specialized in overland travel between Cairo and Gaza. You see, my mother used to tell me about Gaza of her days: how even though she has never been there herself, she knew how beautiful it was based on her eldest brother’s experiences, who visited and returned to Cairo with stories of its riches. That ad put the ease with which people traveled to and from into a perspective that was tangible, and it awakened in me an interest in learning more about Egypt’s recent past by searching for more on the sides of buildings.

People tend to think history is best transmitted formally, via the academe, museums and publications; yet, for me, like other forms of popular culture (films, music, fashion and architecture), fading ads are insightful illustrators of the central point of many of my mother’s stories: that Cairo was cosmopolitan, modern and relevant. And like old storefronts – many of which have fortunately survived the onslaught of bland globalization – fading ads are great indicators of taste and consumption habits. These striking ads are also like puzzles that elicit the modern-day viewer to rediscover obsolete brands, companies and typefaces. I especially like ads that are best described as palimpsests, those thick layers of multiple ads that have accumulated over time, each one revealing a different mystery. Unfortunately, with the wanton neglect of the urban fabric and built environment, we are losing a genre of ephemeral art that informs the contemporary eye. So the next time you pass by a fading ad in Cairo or elsewhere in Egypt, snap a picture to record it for posterity.