Elie Saab

Elie Saab was born July 4, 1964 in Damour, a suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, into a family of Maronite Catholics. He is the oldest of five children and their father was a wood merchant.

In 1976, his home city of Damour was destroyed by the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization). As a result, his family moved closer to Beirut so they could be closer to his father's family.

He began showing a love of design at the age of nine and taught himself to sew. He would create patterns out of newspaper and use his sisters as his models. He would look through his mother's closet for any clothes he could use in his designs that he would showcase on his sisters.

He moved to Paris in 1981 so that he could study design but ended up returning to Beirut. He didn't want to wait any longer to begin designing clothes.

He launched his first atelier in 1982 when he was only 18 years old. He had 15 employees. Initially, Elie Saab made bridal gowns using beautiful fabrics, silk thread, pearls, lace, and detailed embroidery.

His reputation spread so that he went from simply dressing the women in his neighborhood to dressing high society women. In 1997, he became a member of Italian ‘Camera Nazionale della Moda’. He was the first non-Italian to become a member.

He showed his first collection outside of Lebanon in Rome in 1997. He created a ready-to-wear line the next year in Milan, Italy.

In 1998, he had a fashion show in Monaco. Princess Stephanie of Monaco attended the show.

The dress Ellie Saab designed for Halle Berry, for her 2002 Oscar appearance, put him in the fashion spotlight for Hollywood. He was the first Lebanese designer to dress a celebrity for the Oscars.