Photographing the glamour and excess of Egyptian royal weddings – politics, world leaders and lavish jewellery.
Egypt Through the Lens is a four-part series that captures how photographers recorded the modern history of Egypt over 150 years – its kings, presidents, politics, conflicts and cinema.
The third episode tells stories of Egyptian royal family occasions through photographs, some formal, others glamourous, all images from a bygone age. King Farouk’s wedding to Queen Farida in 1938 was an extravagant three-day occasion with 4,000 guests, including foreign royalty, world leaders, a huge wedding cake, expensive jewellery and designer clothes. But photographs later showed another side of the king’s lifestyle when early paparazzi pictures captured him holidaying with young women in Italy. King Farouk went through a divorce and remarriage to a woman he spied in a jewellery shop in Cairo, in an elaborate six-week ceremony even more lavish than his wedding to Farida.
