We were there.

It is a workshop flooded with light, right in the 7th arrondissement of Paris. A relaxing, quiet, inspiring place. Only a few cries from the children of the neighboring school sometimes break the religious silence that prevails there. The Lebanese designer Rabih Kairouz’s fashion house is located there. Patterns are laid out on large tables in the vast main room, which seamstresses carefully cut. But they are waiting for us in another room with an equally impressive ceiling height. Today, Rabih Kairouz is making the latest changes to her summer 2025 wedding dresses collection.

Attention to detail

Next to each model is the “booth” model, and it is on him that the changing details are thought out. A white designer coffee cup wafts of orange blossom. On the first dress with precious pleats, she adjusts the small but tasteless open effect on the armpits. On the next one, she wants the bottom of the dress to be pale yellow. She then adds a bejeweled belt to a very airy model reminiscent of the Greek Vestal Virgins. Faced with general approval, she told herself that it would be wise to sell the accessory in her ready-to-wear collection.

Because on a human scale, there is no firm division between couture, ready-to-wear or bridal collections in this house. One can influence or inspire the other. So we recognize magnetic electric blue dress revised white and lit for wedding. The opposite also happens, as in the case of this dress, which, with one less detail and one more color, will become an evening dress. “For me, it’s the same gesture whether I’m designing a white shirt or a grand couture evening gown. I have the same view, the same demand, it is the technique that is changing,” Rabih Kairouz explains in the conversation with us.

It is also the experience of buying a couture dress that the designer wants to offer to his wedding customers. They can transform the costumes in collaboration with the director of the studio, Heba Menasa. “They’re very happy that it’s available, they come and do the fittings right in the studio. Because we personalize each dress, it really gives the feel of a couture experience,” she explains. “That’s part of the elegance we’re trying to have,” says Rabih Kairouz. The bridal collection, released in 2019, includes permanent models, with an average of ten new models added each season. “When I started in Beirut, twenty-five years ago, it was with wedding dresses,” laughs the designer. We had a lot of requests, so we went for it. A wedding dress is a ready-made structure, retaining the couture emotion.”

Haute couture fittings

While the neon glows on the wallIt’s a couture babyThe designer asks the model to walk a little to appreciate the strawberry collar outfit and the light drape of the silk veil. She watches, rearranges layers of organza, discusses materials with Isabel Lerito, the workshop leader, who wears a pin bracelet so she can make immediate changes. He records all changes on index cards. “That’s how I work, with fittings,” says Rabih Kairouz.

Over the course of three days, Heba Menasa meets with six brides for the first fitting, which lasts about an hour and a half. “I hate it when the bride is dressed up,” says the designer. Customers come here for unconventional dresses. “They want a Rabih silhouette, without lace and long-sleeved crepe, we don’t do that. Our creations are modern, super light, we can walk around with them very easily. There are very few trains and no thick stuff, so it’s quite functional,” adds Heba Menasa.

Most of the orders take place in October and November. The house requires a delay of at least six months from the date of the wedding. Several fittings are needed to get the dress properly tailored so that it can be delivered a month before the big day.A Rabih Karouz wedding dress costs between €3,500 and €15,000. After a few hours, the installation is complete. However, the focus remains. It is now the next ready-to-wear collection that has come under the designer’s sieve. He studies it while the models are in the canvas state. This time he does it without a veil, but not without attention to detail.