Fashionpedia

Elie Saab

In 1982, Saab launched his own Beirut-based fashion label when he was just 18 years old. His main workshop is in Lebanon, a country to which he remains deeply attached. He also has workshops in Milan and Paris. Saab is self-trained. He started sewing as a child and knew that one day he would make a living out of it. In 1981 he moved to Paris to study fashion, but ended up returning and opening his workshop in 1982. In 1997 Saab was the first non-Italian designer to become a member of the Italian Camera Nazionale della Moda, and in 1997, showed his first collection outside Lebanon in Rome. In 1998, he started ready-to-wear in Milan, and in the same year, he held a fashion show in Monaco which was attended by Princess Stephanie. He gained notoriety after he became the first Lebanese designer to dress an Oscar winner, Halle Berry, in 2002. In May 2003, the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture invited him to become a member, and he showed his first haute couture collection in Paris in July 2003. His first ready-to-wear collection in Paris was the Spring-Summer 2006 collection, and Paris is now his permanent ready-to-wear runway.