By BROOKE ANDERSON
The nominations haven’t been announced yet, but Lebanese designers are already busy making dresses that will likely appear on celebrities during next year’s award season.
"This is the time of year we start our [haute] couture collection for Paris fashion week in January," says George Chakra, who designed Helen Mirren’s dress when she won the 2007 Oscar for best actress. "It’s usually from these fashion shows that celebrities pick their dresses."
At the beginning of the year, Lebanese designers Elie Saab and Rabih Kayrouz participated in the semi-annual weeklong haute-couture fashion show in Paris as part of the prestigious Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture. Zuhair Murad, Mr. Chakra and Georges Hobeika showed their collections on their own during the same week, making the total of Lebanese designers who debuted their work in Paris at least five. Mr. Chakra calls this phenomenon "the Lebanese invasion," similar to the 1980s when Japanese designers burst onto the scene.