It started with something I wanted to wear.

I grew up in Austria with Egyptian roots, but Palestine was never something distant to me. It was part of the conversations at home, part of the demonstrations I went to and part of the questions I carried into school. Even when those conversations became uncomfortable, I kept talking about it because it had been present in my life for as long as I can remember.

In 2022 I decided that I did not only want to know Palestine through stories, photos and what other people told me. I wanted to see it myself. Instead of flying directly to Tel Aviv, I travelled through Jordan and crossed by land. At the border I was questioned for around three hours. I had specifically asked not to receive a stamp in my passport, and the whole experience made the journey feel real before I had even arrived.

Then I reached Al Quds and travelled through the West Bank. Places I had heard about since I was young were suddenly in front of me. That trip stayed with me. At the time I did not know it would later become part of the reason WTRMELON existed, but looking back, that was one of the moments that made everything that came later feel personal rather than abstract.

After 7 October 2023, I started seeing images and videos every day that were difficult to ignore. I shared a lot of what I was seeing on my private Instagram because staying silent did not feel right to me. The account was restricted several times and eventually I deactivated it completely.

When I stopped posting, I still wanted to express what I felt in a way people could notice. So I started designing pieces for myself. I was not thinking about launching a fashion brand. I wanted clothing that carried a message without looking like merchandise. The meaning had to be there, but the fabric, the fit, the wash, the print and the way the piece felt on the body mattered just as much.

I kept making samples because I am very particular about what I wear. If I would not wear it myself, I did not want to release it. Then people around me started asking about the shirts. Coworkers asked where they could get one. Strangers noticed the designs. That was the first moment I realised the idea might be bigger than something I had made only for myself.

The first real production run was around 200 shirts across three designs: Just Do It, Roots Forever and Off White. At that point there was no big launch team, no warehouse and no polished operation behind it. There were simply boxes of shirts and the hope that people would understand what I was trying to create.

The first order came from my sister. That felt normal. Then the second order came from someone I did not know. That one felt completely different. A stranger had found the brand, connected with a design and trusted it enough to pay for something I had created. I still remember what that meant to me.

For roughly the first 30 orders I packed everything myself after work. Then I got into my car and drove around Dubai and Sharjah delivering them one by one. I would leave the package at the customer's door, take a photo and send it to them on WhatsApp. There was nothing efficient about it, but it made every order feel personal. In those early days I knew exactly where almost every shirt had gone.

The watermelon had already become a symbol closely connected with Palestine, so the name came naturally from that world. But I did not want to simply call the brand WATERMELON.

WTRMELON is intentionally incomplete. The missing letters are part of the idea. For me, the word stays unfinished while the story around Palestine is unfinished. The brand can grow, the collections can change and the community can become bigger, but that meaning stays inside the name.

That is why the line has always meant more to me than a slogan: WTRMELON till freedom's sweet like WATERMELON.

One day, when the reason behind the missing letters no longer exists, WATERMELON can be written in full. Until then, the incomplete name is a reminder of why the brand started in the first place.

What began with a few designs and deliveries from my own car slowly became a real clothing brand. We started in Dubai, then built a second fulfilment base in Frankfurt so customers across Europe could receive their orders faster. Production also grew beyond one place. Depending on the product, pieces are made in Egypt, Turkey or China, but the standard stays the same: the sample has to feel right before it becomes part of WTRMELON.

I never wanted the designs to disappear just because a drop sold out. Some brands build everything around scarcity. For WTRMELON, the message of a piece should not expire after one season. If people still connect with a design, I want them to be able to wear it years later. That is why many sold out pieces come back.

The brand has grown, but I still prefer to stay behind it rather than make myself the centre of it. WTRMELON should be recognised through the clothes, the artwork, the people wearing it and the stories attached to each piece. The community became bigger than the person who started it, and that is exactly how I want it to feel.

From the beginning, WTRMELON was never supposed to stop at the message printed on the clothing. I wanted a part of what we built to support real work outside the brand too.

Today, €6 from every clothing item goes to HelpNow. Accessories are excluded. Through those contributions, WTRMELON supports humanitarian work connected with Palestinian families, including meals, clean water and shelter. HelpNow is the organisation doing that work. WTRMELON is the clothing brand supporting it.

That distinction matters to me because I never want WTRMELON to look like a charity shop. The clothing has to stand on its own as fashion. The design, quality and story are why someone should want to wear it. The impact is part of what gives the purchase another layer of meaning.

The first shirts were packed after work and delivered from my own car. Today orders leave from Dubai and Frankfurt and reach people in different countries, but the idea behind them is still very close to where it started: wear something you believe in, and let the purchase do something beyond the wardrobe.

See our impact