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Photography by Marie-Béatrice Seillant
Elie Saab
By Christine Suppes
The Lebanese designer Elie Saab is one of Haute Couture's most prolific sellers, with is 500 dresses per season. He has attracted movie stars with his body enveloping, feminine gowns, this season in colors from the entire garden. The result was fresh, ladylike, but with a definite emphasis on the décolleté. Remember Halle Berry's Academy Award winning gown with the embroidered leaves entwining the bodice? This was Elie Saab's creation. He doesn't do day wear. He is strictly a red carpet, charity gala, and high profile party gown designer. His client list and his publicity is one of Couture's most impressive, if you consider the press he receives each time a star of Halle's magnitude sweeps up the red carpet in one of Saab's creations. I sat with two of fashion's most cognoscente fans-Maria Muzio, the sister of Ralph Rucci and Tatiana Sorokko, the former top runway model and tireless supporter of Haute Couture. Princess Haifa, wife of the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States was there, as well as Ivana Trump. The audience was glamorous, often in the sexy evening wear of Mr. Saab. Flower prints, happy large polka dots, and fluid silk make for a glamorous spring for those women lucky enough to have an occasion, to say nothing of a body, for an Elie Saab gown. Mr. Saab reminds us all that the heritage of Beirut is "the Paris of the middle east."
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