Entertaining With shows how a party came together, with expert advice on everything from menus to music.
Nut (pronounced “newt”), the ancient Egyptian goddess of the sky, was often depicted as a slender naked woman covered with stars and arched over the earth in a protective downward dog-like stance. She appears in a similar form on the label of the new Cairo-based brand Anut, which offers home goods — such as palm tree-embroidered linen tablecloths, wicker place mats and animal-shaped ceramic candle holders — inspired by traditional Egyptian crafts and produced by local artisans.
The line’s founder, Goya Gallagher, 54, and creative director, Cruz Maria Wyndham, 40, were drawn to the goddess in part because of their commitment to hiring and training women. “We want to help our artisans go to the next level if that’s what they want,” said the brand’s managing director, Nevine Ramzy, 35, adding that the team will even help negotiate micro loans for their employees so that they can build their own businesses. The company is intent, too, on providing a platform for rising Egyptian creative talents. “We’re collaborating with the poet and photographer Mahmoud Khattab on a project in the Fayoum Oasis with some of the ceramists we work with,” said Gallagher, and partnering with the designer Omar Chakil on a series of vessels carved from Egyptian alabaster.
In November, the brand opened a boutique in Cairo’s leafy Zamalek neighborhood, but it officially launched this month. To celebrate, Gallagher, who splits her time between Cairo and London, invited friends and collaborators to a decadent costume party at the Egyptian Museum, built at the turn of the 20th century in downtown Cairo. She chose the idea of “offerings” for the gathering’s theme, a reference to ancient Egyptian rituals and also an acknowledgment of her gratitude to the country. Born in Ecuador, Gallagher first came to Cairo on vacation in 1992; “I decided Egypt was my destiny,” she said, “and never left.”
She asked the Egyptian-born, New York-based artist and designer Laila Gohar, 36, to oversee the food for the event and to make a series of tableaus around the museum. “It was the greatest honor of my career to be allowed to create an installation in this iconic monument filled with Egyptian history,” said Gohar. The theme inspired her to research the history of the country’s bread, which in Pharaonic times was often used in rituals. On the museum’s second floor, she installed a five-foot-high totem of green glass bubbles to represent the centuries-old art of fermentation, and an equally tall tower of woven grasses that referred to emmer wheat, the grain that ancient Egyptians used to make bread. Another part of her intervention was a simple wooden stand from which she and her team hung hundreds of small, cookie-like flatbreads. “They’re offerings for the guests to take with them,” she explained as her 1-year-old son, Paz, attempted to take a bite of one.
The attendees: Roughly 200 people were invited to arrive at 6:30 for a private tour of the museum and to have dinner in the entrance courtyard at several long tables. They included the Egyptian environmentalist Mounir Neamatalla, 77; the Egyptologist Salima Ikram, 59; Gallagher’s daughter Talia Sawiris, 23; and many of Gallagher’s friends from Cairo and London. Gohar’s family was there too, including her mother, Nevin Elgendy, 60, a leadership coach, and her grandmother Nabila Riad, 80. More guests — among them the anthropologist and curator Farah Hallaba, 28, and Egypt’s former assistant minister of tourism, Lamia Kamel, 47 — arrived later for drinks and dancing, which ended at midnight.
The décor: Wyndham had worked with Gohar to conceive of an installation to welcome guests in front of the museum. “We wanted to bring the mundane and the everyday into this grand colonial space,” said Wyndham, “and give the past a new face, at least for this night only.” They draped both sides of the entrance with blue striped khayamiya fabric, a type of appliquéd Egyptian cotton canvas that was traditionally used to adorn the insides of tents. Gohar also commissioned artisans to create two fountains from plaster and positioned them on either side of the museum’s entrance, filling one with jewel-like pomegranate seeds and the other with husk cherries. The dishes for the nearby buffet were presented on stacks of metal trays of the kind found in the city’s street food cafes. “I wanted to elevate simple local materials,” said Gohar.
The food: Gohar took a similar approach with the meal itself, serving flavorful traditional dishes — prepared by the catering team of the Egyptian restaurant group Zooba — including a freekeh salad with dates and walnuts; pickled turnips and cucumbers; bissara, a dip of blended fava beans; and koshary, an Egyptian staple of rice, vermicelli, brown lentils and pasta topped with tomato sauce and a garlic vinegar dressing. Dessert was a selection of Egyptian pastries like baklava and kunafa (spun pastry dough layered with cheese and soaked in syrup), arranged in tall towers around the courtyard.
The drinks: A team of mixologists created bespoke drinks including the Anut Elixir, a green juice made of parsley, lime and cucumber with a splash of gin, and the Vine Offering, which tasted like a spicy margarita with a hit of coriander and green chili.
The music: After dinner, the New York-based D.J. Jade Croo, a friend of Gallagher’s daughter, spun crowd-pleasing dance hits ranging from “Law Laffeina El Ard” by the ’70s Egyptian singer Maha to Cher’s “Believe.”
The conversation: The British guests spoke about how inspired they were by exploring Cairo, while several of the Cairo-based guests expressed their delight at seeing an international brand celebrate Egyptian craft. Elgendy was pleased that the event was taking place in such an iconic building in downtown Cairo, despite all the recent attention given to the city’s newly opened Grand Egyptian Museum. “There are some of us who believe we should be investing in and renovating Cairo’s beautiful historic architecture, and extending that rich heritage to the new Cairo,” she said, referring to an ambitious urban planning project that’s rising east of the current city center.
An entertaining tip: The evening’s dress code was “Theatrical Ancient Egypt.” Amy Mowafi, the founder of the magazine Cairo Scene, wore a towering crown covered with rhinestones, and Gallagher wore a Cleopatra-style headpiece made for her by the Egyptian jewelry designer Ghazala. “I love a fun dress code,” said Wyndham, who paired a bright yellow vintage jacket with an appliquéd fabric neckpiece made in the Anut studio. “It sparks creativity before the party even begins.”
