Not really..

BUT, being featured on Vogue magazine is my biggest dream.

“Meet Yasmine Daas, the first Arab fashion blogger in Palestine” would be the headline.. A pioneer always deals with struggles. But when you are a pioneer woman, born in such small, complex and super charged place, dreaming of becoming an appreciated figure in the international fashion world, that comes with extra struggles, social, political, and a 100 times double the trouble. As if achieving dreams wasn’t hard enough already…

Since I started my blog in 2014, one of my biggest goals was to give a stage to Palestinian creators and to inspire other girls and women to chase their dreams. I wanted to show the world, which looks at us as “that little dot on the map that is in constant war and camels and dying people”, that we are more than that. We also want to live. So I started working with local designers and show on my Instagram local brands that I like so that we can have a space where we can all consume fashion, and show it proudly to whoever wants to see us.

This “identity” scares most people, confuses most people, everyone has something to say about it, and expects certain things from me, but no one understands what it means to be in my shoes. In too many cases I may lose jobs and opportunities, just because I wasn’t born in “the right race” or the “right place”. It always made me feel like.. just because I, a Palestinian 48 Arab woman, was born in this reality, I am expected to be one thing or another, I am expected to constantly “pick a side”, we don’t have the luxury to want to be in fashion, or have a fashion scene in this reality. But guess what, I turned fashion into my platform. We are expected to be too busy surviving, which most of us are, but we are also educated women, people, dreamers, designers, musicians, actors, creators, creative minds with ambitions and international goals, the difference is that for us it comes with extra struggles, extra obstacles and an extra thick glass ceiling.

I never felt represented, I haven’t heard or read my story in international fashion or lifestyle magazines, so I decided to represent myself, and tell my story on my platform. If you know me you know I’m not too quick to jump on social media trends, but I’m using this #VogueChallenge because it gives me hope, even if it’s imaginary, and I hope it opens the door for other Palestinian ambitious women, entrepreneurs, dreamers, creative minds and creators.

I’m not a Vogue cover girl, and I’m not featured on Vogue, I don’t know if I’ll ever be, but in this Vogue challenge I want to show the world that we are worthy, and WE ARE Vogue material.

This, is about being represented

It’s about being acknowledged

It’s about our story being heard…

and us being seen.

Please feel free to share your dreams with me in the comments, maybe if we write them down, or say them out-loud, they will come true.

Yours,

Yasmine