{"id":667493,"date":"2026-07-01T07:03:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T07:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/667493\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T07:03:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T07:03:09","slug":"women-behind-the-lens-my-grandma-dressed-like-a-celebrity-even-matching-the-colour-of-her-cigarettes-to-her-outfits-global-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/667493\/","title":{"rendered":"Women behind the lens: \u2018My grandma dressed like a celebrity, even matching the colour of her cigarettes to her outfits\u2019 | Global development"},"content":{"rendered":"

This image is a portrait of me and my grandmother, Ehsan Ouf, in her flat in Cairo. It is part of a project Grandma and the Fur Coat<\/a> that I started in 2024. I lived with her for four years, while I was studying photography, and we spent a lot of time chatting and watching TV on that couch.<\/p>\n

The dress I\u2019m wearing is her engagement dress from 1971 \u2013 one of the very few items she wore as a young woman that she still has \u2013 and the fur coat she\u2019s wearing was a gift from my late grandfather. I persuaded her not to sell it \u2013 and that is partly why I decided to start this project: to document how stylish she was. In the 70s and 80s she dressed like a celebrity, wearing brands such as Chanel and Dior. She had a collection of wigs, and even matched the colour of her cigarettes to her outfits.<\/p>\n

double quotation markNo one has shot her since my grandfather died so I wanted to continue his legacy<\/p>\n

Sometimes she tries to convince me to wear a wig when I go out. I think she secretly doesn\u2019t like my curly hair.<\/p>\n

While I was living with her I started going through boxes of old photos. One of my favourites is a black and white photograph taken on the day she got engaged. Many of them were taken by my late grandfather. He loved photographing my grandmother. I never knew him \u2013 he died in 2000, two months after I was born \u2013 but we share the same love of photography. No one had shot her since he died so I wanted to continue his legacy \u2013 and do something for her.<\/p>\n

Ehsan Ouf with her late husband on their engagement day. Photograph: Courtesy of Farida Mahdy<\/p>\n

When my grandfather was alive they often hosted family and friends in the flat, but after his death people stopped coming to visit. Now her days are quiet, and sometimes lonely. As well as being a tribute to how fashionable she was as a young woman, this series reflects on the passing of time, and how life changes. I have started a second project, Ehsan, named after her, which focuses more on who she is now: a 78-year-old woman who is ageing gracefully.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This image is a portrait of me and my grandmother, Ehsan Ouf, in her flat in Cairo. It…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":667494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-667493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}