In the spirit of revelry and a nod to local custom, Jean Paul Gaultier has brought to life the game of baloot through film. The widely popular card game of baloot deeply embedded in the everyday lives of locals and the culture of the kingdom gives a Gaultier twist to the film’s story and treatment, entirely shot by an all-Saudi production team in Riyadh.
Equal parts of innocent fun and trickery are portrayed by the two teams competing in baloot, composed of some of Saudi’s most talent profiles: up-and-coming actress Sarah Taibah and emerging fashion model Domie Alsalim emerge as baloot winners, with fashion and beauty multi-hyphenates Yara Alnamlah and Faisal Alghazzawi rising to the card game’s challenge. The celebrations are further immortalized with the baloot box; a luxe green velvet box stamped in gold with “Jean Paul Gaultier Loves Saudi Arabia”, encased with baloot components designed and created in collaboration with Saudi Arabian artisans.
A deck of cards is exquisitely designed by Raghad Al-Ahmad. Al-Ahmad intuitively merged Jean Paul Gaultier’s signature iconography with cultural motifs rooted in the identity of Saudi Arabia through the artform of collage: the Queen, King, and Jack are reimagined as the bint, shebbah and walad, to represent the regions and cities in Saudi Arabia.
The baloot box is finally packed in a special green bag with gold-embroidered bisht straps, thoughtfully patterned after the intricate gold trimming of the traditional Saudi bisht. The bag was designed and created with Atharna and traditional Saudi Arabian tailor, Salman Alhamad. Atharna is a social enterprise dedicated to the preservation and celebration of Saudi Arabian crafts and culture, who worked with Alhamad, a Saudi bisht tailor from Al Ahsa.
Picture : © Arab News