[You can read an extended multimedia version of this article at 2beMag #8, with photogallery included!]
The designer Elie Saab became world famous in 2002 when Halle Berry, who received the Oscar for best actress, appeared wearing a beautiful burgundy dress made of tulle and organza.
From that moment, the Lebanese couturier shop has not stopped receiving applications from actresses, singers and celebrities from around the world. About two hundred people including fashion designers and operators strive to do the more than a thousand orders that it receives every year. “Yes, I have the luck and honor to have the confidence of many women who want me to dress them up at major events and festivals,” says Elie.
Admirer of the famous couturier Valentino, Elie Saab was the first non-Italian designer invited to present his haute couture collection in the High Fashion Week in Rome in 1997 and since then every season parade in Paris, Rome and Milan.
Sewing, fashion and design are his passion, and are self taught. As a child, Saab, son of a lumber merchant of Beirut, he dreamed of making beautiful clothes, and were his mother and sisters who had the privilege to wear his creations. Obviously, first done with sheets of newspaper. “Design is what I like most, it’s no sacrifice,” says Elie.
At 18 and in the peak of the civil war in Beirut, which lasted 15 years, Saab introduced his first collection of clothing, opened its first store and opened a small workshop where he made wedding dresses, one of his great weakens. The press in Beirut has characterized Saab as a precocious genius.
“When I started there was nothing in the Lebanese fashion or in the Arab world. Now, many young people are eager to jump into the world of fashion. In my country there is much talent “, says Saab.
The key to success is to “conquer the everyday beauty and renew it. What really matters is the mystery woman, not the obvious clothes. I like the subtlety, “said Saab, who is married to Claudine, his right hand in the workshop.
Exquisite fabrics, lightweight fabrics, semi-precious stones and dreamily embroidered are some of the materials used in his designs of haute couture and cocktails. “Haute couture is a meticulous and laborious craft. Each dress takes us many hours of work, embroidery made stitch by stitch, is a real work of art. Never count the hours spent on each creation. The most important thing is the result , “says the designer with some shyness.
Most of his costumes surround us by the magic of the Arabian Nights. Constantly working to highlight the beauty of women , he floods the walkways with glamorous with silk, chiffon and embroidered multicolored, always following very closely the female body. “I think women now have a similar taste. Earlier, Arab women had a particular taste, but not now “, says Saab.
