It’s a rare breed of Middle Eastern couturier that has worked with the calibre of fashion greats that Caroline Seikaly has but she’s definitely not prone to pretension. In fact, she’s as down to earth as they come. Walking into her loft-like atelier, located in the Hamra district of Beirut, I’m greeted by her beautiful three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, who’s bouncing around the room as if it was her playroom. And what a playroom it is – gorgeous lace and silk gowns cover every inch of wall space, fashion magazines lie strewn about and music plays softly in the background.
Dressed casually in boyfriend jeans, a vintage t-shirt and Adidas originals, the 40-year-old designer has a self-professed aversion to melodrama. And it shows. The fact that this busy working mother of two (in addition to that aforementioned three-year-old, Eva, Seikaly has a five-month-old called Joe) expertly juggles family and a burgeoning career makes her all the more likeable, at least to me. And when I touch on what a welcome surprise it is to meet such an untroubled fashion designer, Seikaly laughs modestly, replying with what might as well be her motto: “No divas accepted here.”
Born in Beirut, Seikaly grew up in Maryland and studied fashion design at the Rhode Island School of Design. “I actually started drawing princess dresses well before RISD. It was ever since I was teeny-weeny that I’ve been interested in fashion. My great grandmother was a costume designer in Paris for Moulin Rouge, so it’s probably in my blood,” she says. “I don’t believe I chose fashion, it chose me.”
After graduating, she envisioned moving to New York to look for a job but instead she landed a much-coveted internship with Christian Lacroix in Paris. “He’s my complete opposite design-wise. I was working in the creative studio and whereas I’m rather architectural, taking a piece of paper and drawing in black and white, he’s like a painter, all about the colour and the draping. I was actually pretty bad with colours, it was my weak point but I learned a lot.”
New York never happened. For, while on a summer trip to Beirut, she met the man who was to become her husband. He was based in Paris then, so she decided to stay on, moving from the internship at Lacroix to a job working alongside the one and only ’Kaiser' Karl.
“I worked at Lagerfeld Gallery for eight years in the creative studio. I used to research all the embroidery, prepare the colours, the fabrics. We were with Karl in the studio, so we worked on everything creative before the shoots, the fashion shows, with the models and everything.”
In contrast to Lacroix, Seikaly found that she had much in common with Lagerfeld. “From a design perspective I’m very much like him. We’re both very structured, so it strengthened that in me. He’s very patient. He says fashion is fashion and he’s not a diva. He’s intimidating because he’s such a smart man and incredibly talented but he’s a very nice person.”
It was during this stage of her career that Seikaly decided to start experimenting with bridal wear. “I love gowns and it was a smart way to start out because you only buy white fabric,” she explains. “You can start out small in Paris with bridal wear. Prêt-à-porter was too daunting of a monster.”
So she began experimenting and making samples while still at Lagerfeld before finally moving to Lebanon in 2008. “I had never worked here, never gone to school here, I didn’t even know where to find seamstresses”, she says of trying to find her design foothold in Beirut. “I brought the seamstress I knew from Lagerfeld in Paris to Beirut. I sourced all the fabric from France. I still source all my fabric, everything from silk to mousseline to tulle, from France.”
It took the colour-shy Seikaly a few years before she began injecting colour into her collections through printed fabrics. “It wasn’t until 2012 with my Isadora collection, one of my most colourful collections, that I finally began to experiment with it. Before that, my collections were mainly black and white. Now, I’m loving working with all shades of blue and I’ve recently fallen in love with lime.”
Although Seikaly started out with bridal wear, she soon learned that her light and airy dresses weren’t ostentatious enough for many a local palate so she finally made that ‘monster move’ into prêt-à-porter, officially showing her first resort collection in New York in 2009.
While she’s clearly more in love with designing rather than the fame that can come with it, the talented rising star has already been featured in the likes of the New York Times, Elle and Vogue. And in addition to her acclaim in the world of fashion, Seikaly has also dabbled in costume design, making her mark on the silver screen when Mila Kunis wore a dress of hers in the 2010 Hollywood blockbuster, Black Swan. A shorter version of that well-known lace dress has also been spotted on Madonna and Hayden Panettiere.
Seikaly’s eponymous line currently includes prêt-à-porter and bridal collections, both of which remain true to the designer’s ethereal, feminine and delicate aesthetic. And continuing her foray into the world of colour, Seikaly’s spring/summer 2014 prêt-à-porter collection stands as testament to the designer’s ability to push her own boundaries.
