Lebanese haute couture and bridal designer Abed Mahfouz has become one of the most high-profile creatives to relocate his base from Beirut to the Gulf, moving his atelier to Dubai after Lebanon’s overlapping crises made it almost impossible to run a luxury house from home.
In October 2020, Mahfouz broke the news in a public Facebook post, which was later picked up by local media. He explained that he would be transferring his Beirut studio to Dubai, pointing directly to Lebanon’s economic, financial, and political freefall. In that post, he described the country as a “graveyard of dreams,” where people’s lives had been taken hostage by those tampering with their future. The move, he wrote, was not a choice made lightly, but a response to an “ongoing situation” that left him with little room to breathe – and with a wish to one day come back to a reborn Lebanon.
Even as he packed up his main operations, Mahfouz made one thing clear: Beirut is not erased from the label. He insisted that a small presence would remain in the city that raised him, trained his hand, and witnessed his rise over several decades. That gesture – maintaining a foothold in Beirut while rebuilding in Dubai – captures the story of a designer, and a generation, caught between survival and attachment. It’s not just a move on the map; it’s a love letter on hold, waiting for the day it can be delivered back home.
Leave a Reply