Elie Saab returns to his destroyed Beirut home after blast: the top fashion designer from Lebanon has dressed Kate Middleton, Liu Yifei

Although his home in Beirut was wrecked by the massive August 4 explosion, the first thing fashion designer Elie Saab wanted to know was if anyone was hurt
Saab has dressed royalty including Britain’s Kate Middleton and a host of A-list celebrities, among them actresses Halle Berry, Helen Mirren and Liu Yifei

Fashion

Agence France-Presse

Published: 2:15pm, 21 Aug 2020

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The heritage building of one of Beirut’s best-known residents, fashion designer Elie Saab, badly damaged in the huge explosion that devastated the Lebanese capital, is one of the emblematic images of the disaster.

“Thank God everyone is OK,” Saab told his team on his first visit to the house almost two weeks after the blast, as he picked his way through glass around a damaged marble-top table.

Saab, one of Lebanon’s most famous exports, has dressed royalty including Britain’s Kate Middleton and a host of A-list celebrities. His gowns have been worn on the red carpet by actresses including Halle Berry and Helen Mirren, and, more recently, Liu Yifei at the premiere of Mulan in March 2020.

His elegant home overlooking the main street of Beirut’s trendy Gemmayzeh district was frequented by celebrities from Lebanon and abroad.

The damaged facade of fashion designer Elie Saab’s Beirut home. Photo: AFP

Saab’s home was badly damaged in the explosion. Photo: AFP

Now, marble columns lie in pieces, windows and a balcony have been smashed, and a chandelier has been reduced to chunks of glass. The house, like the whole area, was gutted by the massive August 4 explosion that authorities have said was caused by a huge stock of ammonium nitrate stored at the nearby port.

The blast disfigured huge swathes of the capital, killed 177 people and injured 6,500 more. It ripped open the face of Saab’s carefully renovated early 20th-century home, exposing one of the few examples of traditional Lebanese architecture left in the city after the 1975-1990 civil war.

The first thing Saab asked was if anyone was hurt, Johnny Zeinoun, long-time assistant of Saab, recalled. Photo: AFP

“This place was alive,” Saab’s long-time assistant Johnny Zeinoun said. “To see it like this …” his voice trailed off as he looked at the destruction around him.

Few people were in the house at the moment of the explosion, Zeinoun said as he showed a video of the main hall just after the blast, jagged glass hanging from antique Damascene mother-of-pearl-inlaid mirrors.

The first thing Saab asked was if anyone was hurt, Zeinoun recalled. “He said: ‘I don’t want to hear that there’s any blood.’”

A before and after comparison of Saab’s living room that was damaged in the August 4 Beirut port blast. Photo: AFP

Saab acquired the house in 2006 and renovated it with Venezuela-born, Beirut-based architect Chakib Richani.

“Saab wanted to protect the architectural identity and construction of the house,” with its traditional-style arched windows and high ceilings, said fashion journalist Ali Jaffal, who works with the designer. Pictures published by Architectural Digest in 2009 showed the graceful, airy central hall partitioned by marble columns framing tall windows and warmed by the light of Ottoman-era chandeliers.

Now it is a scene of destruction. Through a gaping hole, wrecked homes can be seen across the street, their blown-out windows and doors leaving them equally exposed.

A damaged balcony at Saab’s home. Photo: AFP

Several of the neighbourhoods hardest hit by the blast, including Gemmayzeh, housed art galleries and boutiques, along with hip bars and restaurants. Their destruction dealt a devastating blow to a creative sector already beleaguered by Lebanon’s worst economic crisis since the civil war.

Saab was not the only big name in Lebanese fashion to have a home or business badly damaged – the headquarters of designer Zuhair Murad, just a stone’s throw from the port, were devastated in the blast.

Images shared on social media show detritus spilling out of once-glittering display windows, and lettering hanging loose from the building’s facade.

“The efforts of years went in a moment,” Murad wrote on Instagram.

Liu Yifei wears an Elie Saab gown as she arrives for the world premiere of the movie Mulan. Photo: EPA

The blast killed 177 people and wounded at least 6,500 more. Photo: AFP

Just down the road from Saab’s home is the flagship atelier of designer Rabih Kayrouz, housed in the 19th-century Dagher Palace.

Kayrouz, who has dressed stars such as Celine Dion and Jada Pinkett Smith, posted pictures of the damage, showing chunks of the red-tiled roof blasted off.

“We are leaving … this beautiful lady to recover,” Kayrouz wrote on Instagram. “We will be back soon.”

Models present creations by Elie Saab during the women's autumn/winter 2020-2021 ready-to-wear collection fashion show in Paris. Photo: Xinhua

Despite the damage, which has piled more hardship on top of the coronavirus pandemic and the economic crisis that has fuelled angry anti-government protests, Zeinoun said Saab was committed to rebuilding.

“The main goal of Mr Saab is to reconstruct,” he said.

“’We started once, we can start again’,” Saab told him.

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