by Victor Argo – yourmiddleeast.com
It’s not only creative talent that makes a
successful designer. (Of that, Lara Khoury has plenty to offer.) It is
also about meeting deadlines and applying a determined work ethic. Lara
Khoury has understood this lesson well at this point of her career, as
she acknowledged when recently talking to the Lebanese website “Secrets
of Beirut”. So I was hardly surprised when Khoury showed up
right on time for our Skype interview. Here she was, an immaculate
olive-skinned beauty with eyes as big as an ocean, radiant and somewhat
mysterious, sporting her trademark super short hair – we will come to
that later.
The class of Lebanese fashion design came to the
attention of a wider international audience when Halle Berry wore an
Elie Saab dress for the Oscar ceremony in 2002. Today, Jennifer Lopez
walks the red carpets wearing Zuhair Murad or Reem Acra designs, while
actress Kerry Washington has joined the ranks of Elie Saab’s followers. In Beirut Lara Khoury
is the undeclared star of a very diverse scene of young Lebanese
fashion designers. Many of them are women. Lara Khoury caters to a
local, a regional and a growing worldwide customer base. Unlike Elie
Saab and other ‘Hollywood designers’ who have a penchant for Haute
Couture, Lara Khoury specializes in ready-to-wear fashion.
Ready-to-wear but not mainstream. In her
collections Lara is constantly experimenting with volumes and forms and
seeks to distort the feminine silhouette by constructing new curves and
shapes, while at the same time keeping a hint of femininity. “Who do you have in mind when you design?” was my
first question to Lara Khoury. “Do you create for Lebanese or
international customers?” “I don’t design for a particular customer,” Lara
said. “With today’s globalization, a designer can craft a collection and
create for whoever they want. I rather think of the message that I want
to give in the collection. And then clients from Lebanon can find my
work in my studio in Beirut and other clients can find it online.” “My decisions are based on creativity – and not on
targeting a specific market,” Lara continued. “It’s not the best thing
to do business-wise, I know, but I do what I do because I love it, so I
don’t want to compromise on anything because of a certain client.”
Lara Khoury makes clothes with a meaning. In 2012
she released Gluttony, a collection which, with its oversized volumes,
criticized the society and the people for being greedy and always
wanting more and more, never satisfied with what they have. Later there
was S-he, a collection celebrating the empowerment of women and making a
statement against the negative attitude towards women in the Arab
world. In 2016, Lara Khoury felt sad about the city she lives in,
Beirut, and she designed a collection to convey this feeling, using
black as the only color. “This is my way of expressing myself,” she
explained, “my way of saying that I have indeed something to say. I show
the people that I have a voice and that I am using it in my work.”
I was curious: with her opinionated views, what
does Lara Khoury think about the rise of fundamentalist movements,
anywhere in the world? In the Arab region, more women wear the hijab
than forty years ago; in Lebanon alcohol is no longer served in
restaurants where it used to be. “Does this trend affect your work?”
“You know,” Lara replied, “if you want to
understand my clients better, and the way they live: it doesn’t really
depend on their religion. Actually the only point to consider is the
social standing my clientèle has. My customers belong to the upper
class, they are well educated, well traveled and have a certain duty
towards their appearance in public. That’s why they look for unique
pieces to express themselves through the clothes they wear.”
In 2014 a survey conducted in seven
Muslim-majority countries by the University of Michigan’s Institute for
Social Research sought to answer the question “What style of dress is
appropriate for women in public?”. The variations between the different
countries were remarkable. While 49% of the Lebanese think that it is
appropriate for a woman to wear her hair open and uncovered, only 3% of
the Saudis and 4% of Egyptians share this opinion. They clearly favor a
very traditional dress. Nevertheless, Lara Khoury has a solid customer
base in Saudi Arabia and in other Gulf countries too.
“What’s your comment on women’s clothing having become the fighting arena of conservatives and liberals?”
“Well…” Lara Khoury paused and deliberated her
answer for a few seconds. “People covering themselves up, hiding their
faces, their eyes, to me that’s like hiding your identity. I find it
dangerous, particularly if women are obligated to dress like that,
because it affects the woman’s personality in so many bad ways.”
“However,” Lara went on, “if a woman likes my
dresses and she also wears a hijab, she can wear the dress I designed
and wear the hijab on top. I have a lot of Arab customers who do this,
even in Saudi Arabia.”
When researching for this article, I stumbled
across a thread of answers on the TripAdvisor website answering the
question of one concerned female traveler, “What do women wear in
Lebanon?” The answer is simple, one ‘expert’ said, “wear what you want
and where you want”. Another responder, a woman, gave a more detailed
account of women’s attire in Lebanon. “The Lebanese women are very
stylish,” she wrote, “they are not into casual; you would see jeans but
paired with some 4-inch heels and a beautiful top. They are always
pulled together, makeup, handbag, and of course the coordinated jewelry
and high heels.”
“What is the essence of beauty in Lebanon? Is there a particular ‘beauty made in Lebanon‘?” I asked Lara Khoury.
She laughed. “Well,” she said, “for the majority,
beauty in Lebanon is a completely different beauty than I have in mind
in my creative vision. Beauty here is known as long hair, big lips, big
breasts and a big ass, a curvy silhouette, which is evidently not what I
think.”
“I think that beauty is in you, it’s an inner beauty, it doesn’t really have to be physical.”
Lara Khoury’s view seems to be a minority stance
in Lebanon. Sarah Mallet from the American University of Beirut
concluded in her master’s thesis on young Lebanese women and plastic
surgery that at least one in three Lebanese women have had some sort of
plastic surgery procedure or cosmetic enhancement. Among the more
affluent member of Beiruti society the number might be even higher.
From a social-psychological perspective, the way
that you look is seen as the greatest form of capital in Lebanese
society. The most important factor is image, how you present yourself to
society. Lebanese live under the impression of being constantly
observed. This means pressure.
So why did Lara Khoury cut her hair short? “Very un-Lebanese, isn’t it?”
For Lara, having this haircut is nothing new. “I
was in school when I cut my hair like this for the first time, fifteen
years ago,” she said. “For me it’s just an expression of forms and
volume. Like if you want to wear earrings, sunglasses or hair for that
matter. Back then everybody was shocked. People wouldn’t really
understand and thought that I was sick. Strangers were asking me why I
did it.”
In the meantime her short hair has become a brand
for Lara Khoury the designer. “Indeed,” she admitted, “I started to
notice that my hair was very intriguing to people. They were saying, oh
this is the designer with the skin head. I also started to realize that I
was inspiring other girls in Lebanon to shave their head.”
As we concluded our interview I wanted to know
what would be the message of her next collection. She wouldn’t say and
remained enigmatic. “My next collection is going to be out in a month,”
she said, “and in a month a lot of things can change.”
Whatever the message will be, one thing will be a
given: Lara Khoury’s new collection will again excite an audience with
its own perspective on design; an audience that looks for something
unique. The new collection will be art that is wearable, a novel
reflection of Lara’s mind and of what is occupying her brain.
