Amongst insiders, Rabih Kayrouz is arguably Lebanon’s greatest fashion export. Yet he is also firmly entrenched within the Paris fashion establishment, counting Lou Lou de la Falaise amongst his ardent fans. At 16 he left Lebanon to study at the prestigious Ecole de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne; cutting his teeth at both Dior and Chanel before opening his own house in Beirut in 1997.
Unlike his Lebanese peers plying the couture circuit, one doesn’t come to Kayrouz for over-the-top embellished evening gowns. Here the house specialty is a seductive blend of expert tailoring and innovative draping, combined with the savoir-faire of Paris’ fabled couture workshops. One ingeniously pin-tucked dress by the designer, quivered with thousands of tiny feathers, put in place by the expert hands of Lemarié.
In 2009, Kayrouz was officially inducted as a member of Paris’ Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, a notoriously tough club to break into. To mark his official arrival on the French couture scene, he unveiled a new Paris showroom housed in the historic Petit Théâtre de Babylone. The space once served as an experimental theater that witnessed the premier of Samuel Beckett’s 1953 play “Waiting for Godot.”
During the ready to wear collections, Kayrouz presents his meticulously made pieces to an international roster of buyers and editors. A piece of the Levant in Paris; visitors to his studio are greeted with the smell of freshly backed Lebanese pastries and crystal decanters filled with herbal teas. Furnished in a mix of modern and vintage finds, over the years Kayrouz has filled the space with personal momentous, including a group of ceramic pomegranates (the symbol of his couture house).
On a recent visit, we asked Kayrouz to pick a prized possession in his studio: “I have always been a fan of the Egyptian actress Sherihan, and I was obsessed with this portrait taken of her by the Lebanese photographer Fouad El-Khoury in 1987. She’s sitting in a movie theater swathed in a fur coat. There is something timeless and elegant about the image which continues to resonate with me today. It was one of the first pieces I brought with me when I moved into the new space,” explained the Lebanese designer.
