Shopping Around in Egypt - Buying Clothes in Cairo

Volume II, Number 6 June 1st, 2001

Buying Clothes in Cairo

By Daniel Lanier

Instead of buying a handmade water pipe or a little leather camel from the bazaar, both probably over-prized, many of my friends who have visited me in Cairo, found themselves instead laden with modern everyday clothes, business dresses or travel wear from one of the countless boutiques here. They discovered something unexpected: Beside the usual souvenir shops and bazaars of all kinds, the whole of Cairo is a large shopping center for modern, western-style clothes, too. Well done, I would say to my friends, nice shirts or trousers do not get dusty, bulky and boring at home like water pipes and leather camels.

Egypt, well known for its quality cotton, is now producing a large range of clothes, for its own retail chains as well as for famous international brands. Many of these clothes arent a bargain, but often still cheaper than in Europe or America if you compare clothes of the same level of quality to each other. If you decided to travel to Cairo, just wait for outfitting yourself with a new set of clothes and buy it there!

But how and where to buy clothes in Cairo? At first, you should know, what exactly you would like to have, expensive international designer wear or modern Western-style middle-class clothing, cheap Egyptian no-name products or high-quality Egyptian brands.

I would recommend to have a first look into some shops of Egyptian clothing companies, which arent well known abroad, but can easily compete with Western brands, in quality as well as in design. Dalydress is one of these companies. It produces and sells a wide range of fine leisure and business wear, for men, women and children, from cotton, linen and other materials, and features theme shops, for example, their nautical-inspired clothes. The selection depends on the season and tends in wintertime to consist more of pullovers and heavy trousers, for example. Dalydress is especially famous for its mens shirts. Their clothes arent really cheap, suits start at around 1000 Egyptian Pound (260 US-$), but are often better quality than what you would get for the same money, for example, in Europe.

Concrete Clothes, another Egyptian brand, is a little cheaper, but also of high quality. Its suits and other formal wear are less classic in design than what you can find at Dalydress, instead a little younger and more modern. Suits start at around LE 600 (160 $). At Safari, you will find a limited, but well-selected choice of leisure and travel fashion from cotton and linen, for men as well as for women and children. And: Safari offers the only non-kitshy, tasteful t-shirts in town, which make a good souvenir with Egyptian comic-strips, including motifs of the pyramids, the balloons written in English and Arabic at the same time.

Young Egyptians, if their parents provide them with a little more money than usual, buy their clothes at the World Trade Center shopping mall, a three-story mall with a six-story annex next to it. In particular, the part of the building which connects both malls, hosts a lot of shops belonging to rising young Egyptian designers.

Egypts young middle-class is strolling through malls, too, if they want to fit themselves out of new clothes. Especially popular is the Ramsis Hilton Annex, and probably the majority of the 500 shops of the newly inaugurated Arkadia Mall are shops for leisure wear, too, with many international brands as for example Diesel and Levis. Always a good address for buying clothes is the whole area along and beside Ibrahim Al-Laqqany Street (beginning from Roxy Square) and Al-Ahram Street in Heliopolis. A countless number of glittering illuminated boutiques, especially nice at night after sunset, and at the end, just where the Al-Ahram Street meets a big church, is the glaring El-Horriyya Shopping Mall, up to the roof full of clothing stores, seven floors. Here you will find Benetton, Adidas, Ted Lapidus etc. and a large number of shops selling Western-style no-name products not a bad choice for obtaining some good and modern everyday clothes inexpensively.

For expensive international designer fashion, try the First Mall in Giza with the elegant shops of Versace, Bvlgari or Aigner. Or try outlets like the Egyptian branch of the international label, Kookai in Mohandeseen. Well-known foreign brands, locally produced in Egypt for export, can be found in shops like Brands For Less.

SAFARI. World Trade Center, Corniche Al-Nil Nr. 1191, Bulaq, Cairo, next to the Hotel Conrad International. Daily 10 am to 10 pm. Another branch in the Nile Hilton Hotel at Tahrir Square, downtown.

DALYDRESS. 41, Shehab St., Mohandessin, Cairo/Giza. Daily 11 am to 10 pm. Other branches throughout the whole city, as for example in the Nile Hilton Annex, Tahrir Square, downtown.


WORLD TRADE CENTER (WTC). Corniche Al-Nil Nr. 1191, Bulaq, Cairo, next to the Hotel Conrad International. Daily 10 am to 10 pm, some shops dont open on Sunday.

Brands For Less. 90 Mohi El-Din Abu El-Ezz St., Mohandeseen, Cairo/Giza or: 2 Taha Hussein St., Zamalek, Cairo (in front of Yamama Shopping Center).

Kookai. 15, Syria St., Mohandeseen, Cairo/Giza.


First Mall. First Residence building, 35, Giza Street, Giza, Cairo. Daily 10 am to 10 pm. In front of the Zoological Garden.


How the Ancient Egyptians Put Their Feet Up: Furnishings in Ancient Egypt By Ilene Springer

Mr. Mohamed Arabi: The "Bird Man" of Aswan By Dr. Susan L. Wilson

A Brief Look at the Sinai By Jimmy Dunn

Mummies of Ancient Egypt: The Process and Beyond By Catherine C. Harris

The Lost Feeling, Or Was It a Mummy? By Arnvid Aakre

Breaking the Color Code By Anita Stratos

Alabaster: Egypt's Rock of the Ages By Sonny Stengle

Wreck Diving in the Egyptian Red Sea By Ned Middleton

The Animals of Ancient Egypt By Caroline Seawright

Editor's Commentary By Jimmy Dunn

Ancient Beauty Secrets By Judith Illes

Book Reviews Various Editors

Hotel Reviews By Jimmy Dunn & Juergen Stryjak

Kid's Corner By Margo Wayman

Cooking with Tour Egypt By Mary K Radnich

The Month in Review By John Applegate

Egyptian Exhibitions By Staff

Egyptian View-Point By Adel Murad

Nightlife Various Editors

Egypt On Screen By Carolyn Patricia Scott

Restaurant Reviews Various Editors

Shopping Around Various Editors

Web Reviews By Siri Bezdicek

May 1st, 2001

April 1st, 2001

March 1st, 2001

February 1st, 2001

January 1st, 2001

December 1st, 2000

October 1st, 2000

September 1st, 2000

August 1st, 2000

July 1st, 2000

June 1st, 2000

last updated: June 8th, 2011