New women’s apparel brand prioritizes sustainably-grown cotton

A new Portland-based apparel startup combines the co-founder’s passion for sustainability with her family’s ancestry as Egyptian cotton farmers.

Emily Mikhaiel, born and raised in California, first traveled to Egypt when she was 10 years old. There, she learned about her grandmother — and the brand’s namesake, Nazeerah — a seamstress for her local village, and her grandfather, who helped local farmers sell their cotton to neighboring factories.

Equipped with a juris doctor in environmental law, Mikhaiel felt called to create a clothing brand that is sustainably made, and supports her homeland’s farmers through simple, minimalist pieces.

“Most of the cotton grown (in Egypt) is grown conventionally with a lot of water, a lot of pesticides and herbicides, and is just not good for the workers, the people wearing the clothing, or the planet,” said Mikhaiel.

Egypt’s agricultural industry relies on water from the Aswan High Dam, one of the world's largest embankment dams, built across the Nile River in 1970. In Nazeerah’s time, the Nile River would flood annually, dumping nutrient-rich silt on cotton and other plants to produce plentiful harvests.

Now, though, the dam has forced many Egyptian farmers to rely on synthetic means of fertilizing and protecting crops, which further degrades the land, according to Mikhaiel. As a result, the Egyptian farming industry, specifically cotton, has declined drastically over the decades.

“The cotton in the area that my father and my family's from is no longer there. That's been switched out with sugar cane and other crops because the cotton coming from China is so much cheaper,” said Mikhaiel.

To support sustainable farmers, Nazeerah partners with family farmers who enhance the land’s biodiversity by farming cotton biodynamically and regeneratively, using only natural compost for fertilizer and non-invasive pest control methods.

The materials are sourced in the Middle East and the clothes are manufactured in Egypt. Mikhaiel said Nazeerah is prioritizing online sales right now but hopes to expand into retail spaces around the country soon.

Mikhaiel's co-founder Mahmoud El-Gazzarr is her pulse into Egypt’s cotton industry. He is a veteran of the apparel manufacturing world, based in Cairo, and has produced products for Wrangler, Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, and maintains relationships with farmers and factories in Egypt.

“Not many brands actually get to connect with the people that are growing their fibers, that's really rare,” Mikhaiel said. “And it's not just the cotton farmers, we have direct connection to the mills, the manufacturers, even the dyers.”