Runway comfort

Rabih Kayrouz lets Beirut speak through his designs. He believes that good clothes, like good homes, should be as comfortable to live in as they are beautiful to look at.

For a country that had little fashion success abroad we’ve suddenly taken a huge leap forward. What happened?

Lebanon is divided into two eras, if you will. The couturier era was full of very good technicians with very good taste, selling perfectly executed couture dresses taken from French and English designers. Then a few people appeared on the creative side, who worked on something more creative, spectacular and unconventional. Shweiter, Katra, William Khoury and later on the Elie Saab movement. They all deserve our thanks.

What was their difference?

Saab for instance, upgraded the business, settled himself as a designer and not a couturier. He presented his collections on the international runways and opened a great door and a road for all us designers who followed him. We came later on, the younger designers, and we wanted to tell a different story with a younger approach and another direction. I’m a part of that generation, with my own story.

When did your generation step up?

My generation came out in the last ten years, and you know how the country’s been changing in the past decade. Architects, designers, filmmakers; we saw an entire generation that studied abroad and then came back to work here. We had determination, and our own ideas.

What ideas exactly?

Well, my own work is another story. I’m not like Shweiter and Saab because I‘ve lived a different life. I never planned this you know. I was lucky to get to Beirut in ’95 and the few years following that were something different as well, something special. There was a constructive energy in the country and that made me stay. Being part of this renewal I was myself renewed and I worked with a new style. I didn’t invent dynamite here – I mean I just design clothes – but I think that my clothes are different because they’re unique to me and my story.

So you don’t actually design for the Lebanese…

When I work I don’t think in that way. I don’t think about the place or person, just the silhouette. The influences are automatic and unconscious. The ladies I see around me on the street, or having a coffee, will all leave me with something and that will make its way into the clothes.

Will Lebanese fashion evolve though?

It’s safe to say that design will evolve normally. Thanks to Elie Saab and his generation who continue to exhibit their collections abroad, we’re going to acquire notoriety, slowly. Lebanon is like that anyway, we have good press, our food, our history; we’re known out there. Fashion is always an index of society and maybe we really can judge people by their clothes. Local fashion is slowly taking an international place. We’ll always see discrepancies. I won’t ever be Saab and this is good. It’s the variety that makes it good. I mean we’re already on the map but the next ten years will be exciting.

Who do you look up to?

My master, if anyone, is Yves Saint Laurent. He created things so beautiful in their simplicity, and we owe him a lot. He made clothes, not just fashion. Fashion has been around for a century, and yet not many designers make clothes. On the flipside I like Yohji Yamamoto. The way he cuts is incredible. He went out of the boundaries of clothing and made something new.

I don’t understand the difference between fashion and clothes…

Clothes fit, they go together. Fashion dies the next year and you never think about it again. Many names disappear that way. Yves Saint Laurent stayed, he’s still here. Yves built the wardrobe for women and Yamamoto built the clothes. It’s something like architecture, something I feel is important.

To fashion design?

To the world! I have an analogy: so many places here were built by builders, not architects. The good architects understand that you’re building a life, not just a house. When you build clothes you have to remember that someone is going to wear them. They’ll be someone’s home for a while.

Function over form then…

Well there’s a boutique in Paris that I like: the lighting is dim and the mirrors are dull. The spirit is that you have to feel the clothes as much as see them. You have to be comfortable in them. I’m not completely into that, as appearance means a lot to me, but the combination of comfort and appearance is the key. Good architecture gives you a comfortable home, and one that looks good.

What is your favorite place in Lebanon?

In Lebanon it’s the mountains for me. It would be so cliché to say Cedars or Faraya, all these mountains have incredible energy. You’re rejuvenated. You feel there’s so much more to do when you’re there. They’re beautiful and untouched. Beirut can be a slap on the face. You can’t pass through Beirut without getting affected. You can’t pass through it and not do anything. I’m not a Beiruti, I lived in Ghazir throughout the war. Then from there I went to Paris and ’95 was pretty much my first visit to Beirut. It wasn’t a mother or sister for me, Beirut didn’t hug me at all. She slapped me right across the face. ‘You’re here’, she said, ‘now do something’.