PM — Thin is in again

Good afternoon, folks. Only five sleeps separate us from meeting with all you good folks at the Enterprise Climate X Forum at the Grand Egyptian Museum on Tuesday, 6 December. More on that below.

THE BIG STORY TODAY

Gov’t to award contracts for first USD 3 bn phase of desalination program next year -SFE’s Soliman: Contracts to build out the first 21 desalination plants under the first phase of the Sisi administration’s multi-bn water desalination program will be awarded next year, Sovereign Fund of Egypt CEO Ayman Soliman said at a conference today, according to Reuters. Soliman put the value of the first phase of the program at USD 3 bn, saying that the full program’s price tag is expected at some USD 8 bn. The first phase of the program has already drawn interest from north of 200 potential international investors, he said.

The program will include several plants in locations on Egypt’s Red Sea and Mediterranean coasts to help give us sufficient water to keep up with population growth over the next 50 years, President Abdel Fattah El Sisi said at a separate event today (watch, runtime: 2:51).

THE BIG STORY ABROAD

It’s a mixed bag in the international business press this afternoon. The EU is reportedly planning to set its price cap on imported Russian oil at USD 60 per barrel, the Wall Street Journal reports. Meanwhile, Reuters and the Financial Times are leading with expectations that China is going to finally begin easing some of its covid-19 precautionary measures, while CNBC’s top story is Ukraine being on “high alert” as Russia launches fresh attacks.

RIP- Fleetwood Mac singer Christine McVie has passed away at the age of 79 following a bout of bad health. McVie was widely known for her extraordinary performance inthe prominent British-American rock band. Her most notable songs include “When the Train Comes Back” released in 1968 and “Spare Me a Little of Your Love” written and sung by her in 1972. The New York Times is out with an obit.

** CATCH UP QUICK on the top stories from today’s EnterpriseAM:

• HSBC’s Todd Wilcox on why EV manufacturing should be an FDI focus: After reading our five-step recipe for turning Egypt into a global export hub and FDI magnet, HSBC’s Todd Wilcox tells us why he thinks we should focus on drawing in FDI to locally manufacture EVs.
• Dozens of multinational firms agree to invest in our outsourcing industry: 29 global firms will up their investments in our outsourcing industry under agreements inked with the CIT Ministry’s Information Technology Industry Development Agency.
• State ownership policy gets final nod from cabinet: The cabinet yesterday approved the final draft of the Madbouly government’s state ownership policy document, following amendments made after months of consultations with public and private-sector stakeholders.

???? CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

French luxury fashion house Dior is hosting its men’s pre-fall collection show against the backdrop of the Giza Pyramids on Saturday. The show will mark the first time Dior brings its traveling men’s pre-fall collection shows to Egypt.

Check out our full calendar on the web for a comprehensive listing of upcoming news events, national holidays and news triggers.

☀️ THIS WEEKEND’S WEATHER- Look for the beautiful late-fall weather to continue through the weekend in Cairo (a high of 24°C during the day), Alex (23°C) and Hurghada (26°C). Expect largely sunny skies with the occasional cloud in all three cities.

Is TikTok responsible for a viral “blackout” challenge that has led to children’s deaths? Visual social media platform TikTok has recently been playing host to the viral “blackout challenge,” in which users choke themselves until they faint and then get an adrenaline rush as they come to — all on camera, according to Bloomberg. The (obviously) dangerous “challenge” has resulted in 15 children aged 12 or below dying as they tried to partake, but appeared unaware of the dangers.

These cases have raised questions about the extent to which TikTok itself should be held accountable. Although TikTok was initially unaware of several incidents of children’s deaths from the “blackout challenge,” the company has known that children below the age of 13 — its minimum age requirement — have been using the app. A big part of the problem is that kids are claiming to be older than 13 to create adult TikTok profiles, as the platform simply sets the age requirement but has long lacked a meaningful way to verify the information. TikTok has since met with facial age-estimation programs that are able to differentiate between teenagers and kids with relative accuracy but has not signed any agreements and has refused to comment as to why but said that it removes underage kids’ accounts, removing 41 mn accounts in the first half of 2022. Twitter, BeReal and Instagram have since begun utilizing these platforms.

We’re closer than ever to a real-life Black Mirror episode: Brain-chip startup Neuralink expects to begin human trials on its brain computer-interface product within six months, pending approvals from the US FDA, CEO Elon Musk said at a “show and tell” event yesterday (watch, runtime: 2:48:32). The product would essentially “allow a person with a debilitating condition … to communicate via their thoughts,” Bloomberg notes. Neuralink had showcased its technology last year by embedding the chips in monkeys’ brains, allowing them to play video games just by thinking about the physical motions of the game.

The company is also working on two separate products that could help restore physical mobility or other human body functions lost to disease, including correcting spinal mobility for people with paralysis, and using an eye implant to restore lost human vision — even if it was never there. This technology is designed to eventually help people with degenerative and paralytic illnesses by sending brain signals between the chips implanted in the body, much like the brain’s regular neural signaling pathways, according to CNN.

The EGX30 rose 2.87% at today’s close on turnover of EGP 2.74 bn. Local investors were net buyers. The index is up 14.2% YTD.

In the green: EKH – EGP (+10.1%), AMOC (+9.7%) and Ezz Steel (+6.6%).

In the red: Cleopatra Hospitals (-3.3%), Ibnsina Pharma (-0.6%) and Talaat Moustafa Group (-0.5%).

The return of the 90s “Heroin Chic” body trend: Although it's difficult to pinpoint when exactly skinniness became in vogue — or if it was ever truly out of vogue — all signs point to the reemergence of being extremely skinny as the most “fashionable” body size. The term heroin chic was coined in the 90s by the media to describe and glorify women who were “painfully thin and sickly looking, as if they were nearly dying of a [substance] addiction,” activist and actress Jameela Jamil explains in a Paper Magazine piece.

The smoking gun: Celebrities who previously boasted “curvy” figures but have now lost dramatic amounts of weight — like reality TV star and serial entrepreneur Kim Kardashian — are a key clue of the changing tides, the New York Post says in its aptly-titled article, “Bye-bye booty: heroin chic is back.” The Post also points to other data points like increasing demand for pilates courses, and the controversial weight-loss pill Ozempic constantly selling out as evidence of its re-emergence.

You can blame nostalgia: The trend’s comeback was heralded by the return of 90s and early 2000s fashion, with low rise jeans — which notoriously come hand-in-hand with expectations of a flat stomach — resurfacing on runways (after their demise for nearly two decades). High fashion brand Miu Miu, for example, used models with bare midriffs donning the “micro-mini” skirt (which it can be argued, more closely resembles a belt than a skirt) in its spring 2023 show in Milan. In order to fully comprehend the ramifications of this trend making a comeback it's important to note that “the return of size zero is bigger than fashion,” according to the Guardian.

So what is it really about? Flat stomachs, not the garments that dressed them, were the striking trend at recent runways, many argue. It’s more about the underlying message and the glorification of skinniness, which leads to a surge in unhealthy behaviors that are sometimes adopted as “necessary” to achieve the look.

Kardashian is getting a lot of heat for her role in perpetuating these ideas, especially as she “plays both sides”: Kardashian bragged about the restrictive diet that helped her lose 16 lb to fit into Marilyn Monroe’s dress for this year’s Met Gala echoing 90s eating disorder culture, the Guardian reports. There is an argument to be made that no single person has been as beneficial and as detrimental to the body positivity movement than Kardashian. When she first arrived on the scene in the late 2000s, she was credited with inspiring women to love and show off their curves with her voluptuous figure standing out in a sea of tall slim women on red carpets, according to The Cut. Then in a real blow to the body positivity movement, she began endorsing diet products including appetite suppressants and laxatives on Instagram making millions advertising the products to her followers, many of which are impressionable young women. She has since moved on to other ventures but still promotes stomach tightening treatments.

How big of a role did she actually play in the “size zero” trend’s resurgence? An article in The Cut has even argued that one specific 2018 beauty campaign Kardashian was in, in which she had clearly lost a considerable amount of weight, was the starting point of the “thin is in again” movement. A recent viral tweet also compares two photos of her from 2017 and 2022, with the side-by-side resembling the before-and-after comparisons that commonly frequented the tabloids in the mid 2000s, with voluptuous Kim on the left and skinny Kim on the right.

There are other people in the public eye who have also had an outsized impact: Model Kate Moss, who was once the poster girl for “heroin chic,” famously once stated “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” Millennials, many of whom were teenagers at the time, went to great lengths to make their bodies look like hers, including over-exercising, going on fad diets, and throwing up their food, according to Paper Magazine.

The odd data point that doesn’t quite fit in: The average size of runway models actually isn’t going down — at least not on paper. Out of 247 fashion shows this season, 90 included plus-size models, up from 62 the previous season, according to fashion search engine Tagwalk, The Guardian reports. Some 64% of labels continue to hire solely the classic slim body type on their runways but the trend is moving in the right direction. However, these figures do not differentiate between small designers and bigger more influential fashion brands, suggesting that skinnier models are likely being used by those with an outsized influence.