Elie Saab

PARIS, October 9, 2005
By Nicole Phelps
Fresh off two big hits at the Emmys last month—Marcia Cross and Debra Messing both chose gowns from his July haute couture show—Elie Saab presented his ready-to-wear collection this morning in Paris for the first time. While the 73-look extravaganza needed editing, it had the makings of success; you could easily picture his celebrity clients wearing one of the white raw-silk skirtsuits to a Beverly Hills benefit lunch. And some of his black cocktail dresses—a drop-waist pleated chiffon number comes to mind—would flatter a young starlet on the premiere circuit.

If bling is retreating on most other runways, though, the Beirut-based Saab seems not to have got that memo. For non-red-carpet nights, he kept the silhouette narrow and the embellishments to a minimum—as in a red floral-print chiffon column dress. But elsewhere, with Rita Hayworth and Marilyn Monroe as inspirations, he liberally sequined hourglass gowns, embroidered pearls onto the hems of others, and trimmed a few in feathers—all flashbulb-friendly, to say the least. With his ready-to-wear operation now in its sixth year, Saab is talking about opening a store in Paris, but the place he ought to be is Southern California.

Follow us on Twitter

Loading...

Style File Blog

february 13, 2012

Designer update

Surface To Air Rocks Out

06:02 PM
Surface to Air has a long history of working with rock star collaborators, including the likes of...

Q&A

Marina Abramović On Her Own Life—And Death

05:02 PM

more from the style file blog ›