My Beirut Fashion Week Experience
Today, I’m happy to share with you my experience during Beirut Fashion Week, where I had the pleasure to be the guest of honor for the April 2017 edition. Every season, they invite a new designer, and this season, I was the guest of honor. La Mode à Beyrouth, which is the company in charge of supporting the new wave of designers from all around the world, greeted us to the Forum de Beyrouth which was the location of all fashion shows during this special red carpet week.
Beirut has become a reference of fashion. It is one of the biggest market in the Middle East. The French craftsmanship is a commercial value in Lebanon, and we were happy to witness that the media and the buyers liked my collection. There was a huge preparation for this event. It was about bringing visibility to my new brand and getting good press coverage and private orders. Between the making of the collection to the music mixing for the show, and the mood boards of hair and makeup, the model selection and fittings, this preparation has been hectic, but so rewarding!
My ready-to-wear is all about the right structure. We made a very specific selection of 9 looks from my ready-to-wear collection to present for the opening of the show. It was all about pure lines, minimalistic cuts, but with strong colors such as red, pink and black. Colors that seduce women… Then came my Haute Couture collections in shades of red to light pink, ending with white for the brides. We made it look like a Ball celebration.
The final bride was of course the centerpiece of the collection, that we emphasized on the catwalk. It is a gown made of French Dentelle de Calais, silk organza embroidered by hand with Dentelle appliqués, and embellished with nacre buttons. The backless cut is so feminine, and look at this veil embroidered with 9 meters of French guipure! It took us 4 days of work to embroider the tulle in my atelier.
Beirut treated us incredibly well. It’s a city that I love very much. I particularly appreciate the Lebanese women’s sense of beauty: they are full of elegance and finesse. Above all, what touched me the most, is the people. They are all warm, cheerful and welcoming from the moment we landed in Beirut, my team and I felt really overwhelmed by the degree of kindness and attention.
Fashion is so closely linked to sociology, it evolves and moves with the people. It goes as far as saying that fashion can even change roles and perspectives. France and Lebanon have different tastes when it comes to fashion. French are more minimalistic, while Lebanese are more extravagant. They like very specific details of embellishments in a dress. The front row of my show was a celebration of feminity. Bloggers, public figures and journalists flocked to my event that occurred during the closing ceremony of Beirut Fashion Week, dressed in tuxedos and Couture dresses.
