Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

In Beirut, Where Fashion Lives Dangerously

Krikor Jabotian, a fashion designer in Beirut, has spent the last five years working to grow his business despite the unrest and violence in the city.Credit...Bryan Denton for The New York Times

Late last year, while working one afternoon in his atelier in central Beirut, the fashion designer Krikor Jabotian and his 20 or so staff members heard a very loud bang.

“It sounded like a bomb,” said Mr. Jabotian, who grew up in the city during the civil war that raged in Lebanon from 1975 to 1990 and started his label there five years ago. “But we just kept working. That’s just how we work in Beirut: expect the unexpected.”

It was a bomb. About four blocks away explosives had killed the Lebanese intelligence chief and destroyed most of the street. Beirut, again, tensed for violence.

But Mr. Jabotian just kept on making dresses.

Beirut traditionally has been described as the Middle East’s most fashionable city — but in recent decades the country has been better known for conflict than couture, especially today with the civil war in Syria.

So what is the point of fashion in Beirut now? And what impact does conflict and always “expecting the unexpected” have on designers and their clientele?

“We kept on working because it was our way of supporting one another,” said the designer Rabih Kayrouz, who started his career in Lebanon but relocated to Paris in 2008.

“Of course, sometimes fashion is not a priority. For instance, at a time of crisis I wouldn’t do something like put on a big fashion week — that’s just insane,” said Mr. Kayrouz, who canceled a show in 2005 when a former prime minister of Lebanon, Rafik Hariri, was assassinated. “But I wouldn’t close the business down either. You have this attitude of survival.”

Zuhair Murad, another Lebanese designer whose glamorous dresses have been worn by A-listers like Jennifer Lopez, Kristen Stewart and Jessica Alba, agreed. “Selling our product does not mean that we are frivolous,” he said. “We are providing for our customers, our employees, their families and their children just like everyone else. If anything, fashion has proven that Lebanon has more to offer than war and violence.”

Much of Lebanon’s domestic fashion industry is focused on private commissions. After graduating from one of several available programs — the best-known school is a branch of the French school ESMOD — designers’ careers often begin with bespoke work for wealthy clients from the Arab Gulf states, then expand into ready-to-wear if they are successful.

That path has been followed by many of Lebanon’s biggest fashion names — the likes of Mr. Murad, Mr. Kayrouz, Elie Saab, Georges Chakra and Reem Acra, some of whom now produce ready-to-wear collections elsewhere but serve their high-paying private clients when at home.

Such work is lucrative for beginners. “A couture dress that costs around $3,000 to make could sell for around $10,000 — making the potential profits off couture very tempting,” said a recent article in the local English-language newspaper, The Daily Star.

It is hard to determine exactly how much the local fashion industry is worth, but a 2007 study on Lebanon’s creative industries authored by the School of Business at the American University of Beirut suggested that it would be more than $40 million.

The researchers also estimated that there were at least 40 fashion businesses operating in 2007, the most recent statistic available; some employed as many as 70 full-time and 200 part-time workers.

The country’s fashion industry does not rank highly among national concerns now.

Fashion shows are usually V.I.P. events organized by labels, and although there have been attempts to put on a Beirut fashion week in the past, they have not been taken very seriously.

Image
A custom design by Mr. Jabotian. As Lebanon's fashion market is so volatile, many of the country's designers concentrate on bespoke orders.Credit...Bryan Denton for The New York Times

And, unlike in other countries, there is little institutional support for young designers.

“Understandably the Lebanese government has other priorities,” said Mr. Kayrouz, who has tried to help by starting a Beirut-based foundation to support new designers.

So staying in business is largely left to the designers themselves. As the School of Business researchers wrote, during instability, designers were able to survive because many clients were outside the country, they moved stores and ateliers to safer locations and they managed to circumvent things like Israel’s 2006 blockade of the country.

“Even during the civil war, we adapted — designers used to fly to the Gulf in order to continue doing business. And that is happening again,” said Mr. Jabotian, who has recently been making longer trips to clients’ countries. “A couple of years ago Beirut was heaven. Lots of tourists coming from the Gulf, and they would do all their shopping here. But now the political situation is affecting business.”

Lebanon’s history of war and the ongoing potential for conflict do not only affect practicalities, they affect the mind-set of the customer and the designer. The city’s art and party scene already has a reputation for hedonism, a seize-the-day attitude that includes making up rules as it goes along.

“Beirut is very spontaneous,” said Mr. Jabotian, adding that the nervous energy moved him, making him want to do better.

But always “expecting the unexpected” also can cause a siege mentality.

“When I came to Paris, I remember thinking, I can’t believe the way we used to work in Lebanon,” Mr. Kayrouz said. “In Paris, my way of designing is much calmer. I am still inspired by the same things — it’s just that here I can focus on the collection itself instead of stressing about whether there will be any electricity today, or if I am going to make it to work.”

Any direct juxtaposition of fashion and conflict is always controversial. Historically, many collections have had allusions to uniforms; war has had an impact on what people wear.

But in situations where fashion and conflict come uncomfortably close, “charges of insensitivity are almost inevitable,” said Jane Tynan, a specialist in cultural history at the Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design in London.

Because fashion is usually seen as superficial and shallow while war is serious, “fashion picks up on the zeitgeist very quickly and you see some interesting reflections of who we are and how we live,” Dr. Tynan said. “But that is part of the problem. There is a lack of depth.

“I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that — but it can be seen as a glib response,” she said, referring to a well-known 2007 Vogue Italia shoot by Steven Meisel featuring models and soldiers that its many critics said glamorized the Iraq war.

Whether those criticisms are taken seriously apparently depends on how close to the front line you are standing.

“Images like Meisel’s are emerging from places where there are fewer and fewer people in the military,” Dr. Tynan said. “People who know what war means are more realistic. For those in a war zone, or in a place where there’s a history of conflict, they are repudiating that.”

Mr. Kayrouz agreed. “We would never do that,” he said, referring to the same 2007 photographs. “It’s disrespectful to those who have suffered.”

Mr. Murad said war had not been a source of inspiration to him: “We do not depend on conflict and suffering to come up with splendor.”

On this particular day in Beirut, the sun was shining on the broad balcony of Mr. Jabotian’s atelier. And he said he continued to look on the bright side.

“By nature, Lebanese people tend to be proactive. We’ll adapt to any circumstance,” Mr. Jabotian said staunchly. “These times won’t stop me from being creative. This is the path I’ve chosen.”

A version of this article appears in print on   in The International Herald Tribune. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT