COMPLETE COLLECTION

PARIS, January 25, 2012

By Nicole Phelps

Elie Saab is a name you hear on the red carpet more and more these days. What makes the Lebanese designer so popular with the Hollywood crowd? An influential celebrity stylist told us, "His dresses are shiny, uncomplicated, and easy to digest." That sums up Saab's new Couture offering quite well. He showed full-skirted party frocks and slim evening gowns in a rainbow of pastel shades, nearly all of them sparkly. What separated one from the next was the vertiginousness of a neckline, the presence or absence of sleeves, the length of a train, and the occasional cape. He included one print, an oversize botanical, but it looked like an afterthought amid all that pink, peach, yellow, mint green, and baby blue.

Our stylist friend neglected to mention one thing in her explanation of Saab's success: lightness. Despite all the handwork, these dresses—with the exception of an uncharacteristically heavy wedding gown—appeared almost weightless. That's gotta count for something when you could be walking away from the Oscars with a statuette.

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