Karen Wazen on Insecurities, Eyewear and Her Egyptian Homecoming

There is a delicious irony to the fact that Karen Wazen, whose name now adorns an international eyewear empire, spent much of her childhood wishing people would look anywhere but at her eyes. They were too big, she thought, too conspicuous, too different. Sunglasses offered a convenient refuge from the scrutiny of adolescence. Years later, that same insecurity would become the unlikely foundation of a fashion business built around the pleasure of being seen.

The Lebanese entrepreneur first made her name in fashion through the distinctly modern enterprise of turning personal taste into public influence. Having established her fashion blog, Karen's Choice, in 2016, she ventured beyond the carefully curated confines of social media to launch her namesake eyewear label in December 2018, transforming what had once been a personal preoccupation into a commercial proposition. Sunglasses became her signature, followed by jewellery and accessories, as her designs found their way into international retailers including Selfridges in London, Galeries Lafayette and Bloomingdale's. In May 2026, the opening of a flagship boutique at Dubai Mall further established the brand's physical retail presence, following years of expansion through more than 20 retail and e-commerce partners worldwide.

When Scene Styled spoke to Wazen in Cairo, she had arrived to celebrate the November 8th and 9th openings of her first two Egyptian boutiques, at 5A by The Waterway in New Cairo and Arkan Plaza in Sheikh Zayed. The occasion marked the latest chapter in a relationship with Baraka Group, which announced its exclusive distribution partnership with the brand in February 2021, ahead of its Egyptian retail rollout that March. Having since sold more than 12,500 pairs of eyewear locally, the partnership has developed into a joint venture with approximately 15 to 16 stores planned across Egypt over the next four years. This time, however, the brand had acquired two addresses of its own.

The celebrations assembled some of Egypt's most recognisable faces, though beneath the considerable polish of the occasion was a woman remarkably forthcoming about the awkwardness that preceded her success. Wazen confessed that posing without her sunglasses still felt different. Putting them back on was almost instinctive. “I just feel this like part of my identity now,” she explained, reflecting on how the very feature she once regarded as an imperfection had ultimately shaped her relationship with fashion.

Cairo, meanwhile, felt like an extension of home, its reception almost surreal. And for someone who once regarded her most distinctive feature as something to conceal, there was a certain poetic satisfaction in the proceedings. The girl who had hidden behind her sunglasses was now standing before a roomful of people who had come to celebrate them.