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