Palestinian owned clothing company brings Middle Eastern, North African communities together
Two years ago, Naseem Nimer walked into his cousin’s birthday party and was surprised when he was met with the guests wearing ugly Christmas sweaters even though none of them celebrated Christmas. He knew that they were wearing them because it’s a fun tradition and is normalized in America no matter what religion you follow, but it made him think ‘why don’t we have anything like this?’
This inspired him to create something Americans who ethnically identify as Middle Eastern or North African could use to come together as a community. Now, at thirty years old, his business, Urban Balad, has been established as a fun way to appreciate culture.
“The main inspiration was taking our Middle Eastern and North African heritage and combining it with American culture,” Nimer said, “Taking designs and combining them with Americanized clothing, Like ugly sweaters. Taking American traditions and creating something like that to go with our roots.”
He noted that many POC around him use their ethnicity and combine it with American Culture, which would soon influence all the designs developed and produced.
After bringing his main ideas together, Nimer started brainstorming a list of different designs to be created. The focus of these designs highlights popular aspects of each culture through lighthearted products. In the beginning, the designs were mainly food related, then slowly started to span into other aspects of the cultures- entertainment, like dabka, and the differences in dialect, referencing their chnafa vs. knafa designs. These unique designs caused the business to be brought into the spotlight, gaining attention from around the country.
Being a Palestinian-American growing up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he never noticed a disconnect from the people in his neighborhood until the rise of internet and social media. As more cultures and groups of people started getting global recognition, the differences that Middle Eastern and North African cultures had started to stand out.
“There were many differences in the MENA community, like differences in religion, beliefs, cultures,” Nimer Said, “I thought these were interesting, but a lot of people used differences as something that was bad. I wanted to bring attention to them in a good way.”
Even with being close to graduation in April and being an MBA/MHA candidate, culture and community are aspects of life he still holds close to him and wants to be directly involved in.
Although Urban Balad getting more exposure, there have been major difficulties faced involving manufacturing and the morals of the business.
“I used to manufacture through a company in China, then found out about the horrible things happening to the Uighur Muslims,” Nimer said, “I decided I wanted nothing to do with that area. Even though it was difficult locating another manufacturer to work with, ethics and morals are definitely a priority and are important to our business.”
Now, Urban Balad is expanding and is preparing to release different lines of clothing, some being based off of MENA countries they want to individually highlight, A collaboration with Empowered Arab Sisterhood, which is a sorority at University of Michigan that is donating to Syrian Refugees, and additions to their already existing lines. They are looking for more non-profit organizations to donate to and collaborate with, and hope to expand Urban Balad as a nationwide brand the MENA community can look forward to and appreciate.
