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BOLD ISSUE 32 | APRIL 2015
DESIGNER SARA MELKI TYPIFIES THE BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS
MAKING LEBANESE FASHION A SECTOR TO WATCH.
By Dan Hilton
ou might be forgiv-
en for expecting that
a 28-year-old with
three years of experi-
ence under their belt
running their own
business and brand
would be somewhat bullish, abrupt, even
arrogant. Not so with Sara Melki. We
meet at Espace M, the concept store in
HorshTabet,Beirut,wheretheupperlev-
el is dedicated to her designs. The bright,
light space with floor-to-ceiling windows
overlooking the luxury Hilton hotel is as
open as she is, and from the moment we
sit down for a coffee it becomes clear that
this is the secret of her success.
Originally from the jolly seaside Leb-
anese town of Jounieh, Melki comes
from a creative background. With furni-
ture-designing parents and a painter un-
cle, art has been always been part of her
life, and it is from this angle that she ap-
proached fashion. “I think when you like
art, everything is a continuity,” she says.
A fine art graduate from the renowned
Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA),
she found that an early experience in-
terning at fashion house Maison Rabih
Kayrouz was having a profound influence
on her creative output. “All my teachers
would say, ‘Oh Sara, we can see you love
textiles.’ When you see my work from
then, it’s always mix and match with tex-
tiles and colors.”
Lebanonisblessedwithsomeworld-fa-
mous names in fashion, such as Elie Saab,
Zuhair Murad and Reema Acra, yet Melki
points towards artists, travel and history
as her influences. Her most recent collec-
tion juxtaposes themes borrowed from a
SPECIAL REPORT HER PLACE,
IN THE SUN
Y

2. bold-mag.com | 73
recent trip to Madagascar with the works
of Walid Raad, whose wartime photogra-
phy Melki finds inspiring. “And I love the
work of (Joan) Miró,” she says. “All the
paintings that have colors and mixing, I
am amazed by them.”
Yet this somewhat unusual approach is
perhaps what sets Melki apart, and keeps
her distinct. “It’s a very rude, rude world
and there’s lots of young designers,” says
Valerie Nehme, brand and communica-
tions manager at Sarah Melki. “So she has
to always think differently and be differ-
ent from the other designers, not do the
same. She has to have a vision and she has
to think on a different level.”
Melki says her background in art helps
her to be braver, to take more risks and
to avoid finding herself in the pitfall of
following too closely the trends that can
make young Lebanese designers indis-
tinguishable, and this is needed from a
business perspective as well. According
to Nehme the abundance of young Leba-
nese designers “pushes her to innovate –
in her branding, in her communications,
in strategy. In everything she has to re-
think the brand just to be different from
all the others.”
After ALBA, Melki moved to Paris,
studying in Studio Bercot, the school that
gave us Isabel Marant, and then hopped
between fashion houses in Paris and New
York, such as Malhia Kent and Proenza
Schouler. So why move back to Lebanon?
“I didn’t want to go abroad and learn all
this good stuff and not come back to my
country and give it a push,” Melki ex-
plains.“SoformeI’mproudtocomeback,

3. 74 | bold-mag.com
and OK, thank you, I’m really thankful to
Europe and the States for what I learned
there, but it’s nice to come back and put
all this background in your country.”
Melki also says that for a young design-
er going it alone, Lebanon is a great place
to build a base, an identity and a name for
yourself. “Because it’s a small country, if
you do something that the Lebanese like
it’s really good because they talk a lot on
social media,” she says. In Paris, Melki
explains, social media doesn’t hold the
same sway, but in Lebanon the constant
chitter-chatter and follower harvesting
of Facebook, Twitter and blogs are vital-
ly important in getting your name out
there.
This poses challenges as well. In the
world of Lebanese fashion, bloggers such
as Une Libanaise de Paris, whose blog at-
tracts 400,000 visits a month, hold great
sway over who buys what and which de-
signers are on everybody’s lips. Designers
always need to keep them sweet and en-
sure they are up to date with their latest
collections. “Every collection you have
to send them gifts, and sometimes they
wear them and sometimes not,” Melki ex-
plains. In such a small scene, seeing and
being seen is of the upmost importance.
“Always we have to go to events. Here, if
you come to my event, I go to your event
… You have to be always present every-
where because people talk, so people can
say ‘she was here, she is cool.’”
While Lebanon might be a good base
for young designers to make a name for
themselves, it poses unique challenges
for those such as Melki who are setting up
their own businesses and going it alone.
Politicalandsecurityturmoilhasimpact-
ed the economy, and Melki says people
are not buying as they once were. “But we
don’t have to lose hope, we have to fight
this and I will not say no,” she says. Open-
ing a new store in Beirut’s trendy and
pedestrian-friendly Mar
Mikhael is part of her push
to allow the label to reach a
greater audience despite an
unforgiving climate. Having
her own business clearly
means the world to Melki.
“It’s like having a newborn
baby. I can’t tell you the feel-
ing, it’s really nice,” she says.
“When you see your name
or when I go to a dinner or
a party and I see someone
wearing my design it’s grat-
ifying. But it’s really scary as
well, because I always have
to be creative.”
However, there is little
help out there for young, aspirational
designers such as Melki. Many see Leba-
non’s multitude of talented designers as
an untapped potential resource for the
economy, but little support from politi-
cians has been forthcoming, Melki says.
Initiatives such as Beirut Design Week
have been put in place to rectify this. “We
have a lot of designers during this week.
There’s a lot of, you feel something is hap-
pening in Beirut, and we are proud of this
and we are happy,” says Melki. The mate-
rial benefits of this, however, are less ob-
vious. “I don’t think that a lot of money is
coming in. A lot of people are coming in,
yes, but a lot of money, no.”
Even the top boutiques in the country,
such as Plum and Aishti, are unwilling
to sell young Lebanese designers’ works,
Melki says. “When you go abroad you see
they are proud of their designers, even if
they are small designers,” she explains,
adding, “Here in Lebanon, it’s a shame for
them to sell Lebanese designers. They are
always looking out for big brands, which
is very sad.”
But with the Mar Mikhael shop to open
within weeks and a new collection on the
horizon, Melki is only positive about her
future in the Lebanese fashion industry.
“I will do my collection, I will do a launch,
I will do a big party and I will be more
confident and wish the best for the coun-
try,” she says.
YOU FEEL
SOMETHING IS
HAPPENING IN
BEIRUT”