A look at the rise of Lebanese fashion designers

The rarefied world of haute couture today is about luxury occasion clothes, and Lebanese designers are masters of the category. Take Elie Saab, for instance. At the recently concluded Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week, the celebrity designer hosted a party to inaugurate his large new boutique on the Avenue George V, giving clients the perfect occasion to wear his shimmering lace dresses.

They had no shortage of choice – Saab is known for his beautiful evening dresses, a point not missed on A-listers, who, like his clients, undoubtedly will be clamouring to slip into his flattering, new, gilded haute couture gems.

Inspired by the glistening golden palaces of Byzantium, gold thread has been used extensively throughout the collection of almost diaphanous empire-line and ballerina dresses. The models sweetly coiffed with golden laurels in their hair and on their wrists – made it clear the range is aimed at women who see themselves as princesses.

Long, lace column gowns with glimmering organic embroideries and sheer tulle sections in the skirts and torso, play on transparency, evoking the three-dimensionality of flora.

Saab made sure his palette mirrored this, doing away with his traffic-stopping bright gowns for a softer colour wheel.

Gold- and silver-embroidered dresses captured the hues of metal. Elsewhere, nude pink evoked flesh, pale terre verte the plants, and beige and black, the Earth.

Original article by Francesca Fearon

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A look at the rise of Lebanese fashion designers