Doha Fashion Fridays: Migrant workers show off their style – a photo report

Every day, Bisho Sahani would start his shift at 5 a.m., building roads for hours in the fierce Qatar summer heat. And every night when he returned to his labor camp, he would pull out his phone and make TikTok videos for his 60,000 followers.
Most of his videos are songs and poems about love, romance and the trials of life, but among them are stories about the hardships he faced in Qatar. "I wanted to show that the foreign land is the land of trouble...Nepal is always better for us," says Sahani, who is now back in his home country.
The men who built the Qatar World Cup, and those who helped make it happen, are often defined by little more than the pale blue overalls that signal their status as low-wage workers. But even in Qatar, their lives are complex and varied. They are workers, but they are also social media stars, activists, fathers and fashionistas.
About 95% of Qatar's working population comes from abroad. 'foreign. Some are middle- or high-income earners, but the vast majority are low-wage workers. With a population of around 400,000 in Qatar, Nepalese are the country's second largest nationality (tied with Bangladesh, but behind the 700,000 Indian expatriates).
They feature prominently in an Instagram account that offers rare insight into t...

Fashion Nov 26, 2022 0 37 Add to Reading List

Doha Fashion Fridays: Migrant workers show off their style – a photo report

Every day, Bisho Sahani would start his shift at 5 a.m., building roads for hours in the fierce Qatar summer heat. And every night when he returned to his labor camp, he would pull out his phone and make TikTok videos for his 60,000 followers.

Most of his videos are songs and poems about love, romance and the trials of life, but among them are stories about the hardships he faced in Qatar. "I wanted to show that the foreign land is the land of trouble...Nepal is always better for us," says Sahani, who is now back in his home country.

Three sound images TikTok account of Nepalese man Bisho Sahani who was a laborer in Qatar.

The men who built the Qatar World Cup, and those who helped make it happen, are often defined by little more than the pale blue overalls that signal their status as low-wage workers. But even in Qatar, their lives are complex and varied. They are workers, but they are also social media stars, activists, fathers and fashionistas.

About 95% of Qatar's working population comes from abroad. 'foreign. Some are middle- or high-income earners, but the vast majority are low-wage workers. With a population of around 400,000 in Qatar, Nepalese are the country's second largest nationality (tied with Bangladesh, but behind the 700,000 Indian expatriates).

They feature prominently in an Instagram account that offers rare insight into t...