The way fashion houses use social media to communicate their campaigns and engage with audiences has deepened and defined their modern identity. For that reason, it can be particularly fun to witness the lead-up to fashion events like Paris Haute Couture Week, especially if a brand is savvy at teasing details. In the days before Georges Hobeika’s Fall 2018 Couture show, the Lebanese fashion house used Instagram to preview some truly exquisite details, but robbed of context the brief, up-close shots only served to whet our appetites. What dress would feature a spindle of glittering purple beads? Which one would carry candy-colored branches of embroidery and paillettes or a sparkling chandelier of dangling bugle-beaded fringe? We had to wait for the show to find out.
Evidenced by his perpetual presence on the red carpet, Hobeika has carved out a lane as one of the industry’s most formidable designers, and we can’t wait to see how this collection is worn by the A-listers who are browsing for something formal but totally original.
Themed after fine-feathered swans and their elegant bearing, Georges Hobeika did what he does best: red carpet couture fit for the stars. The first look, with its hologram-like shiny skirt, offered a youthful interpretation of occasionwear, as did a variety of dresses with shorter hemlines and others with strategically placed cut-outs. The rest of the collection stuck to more conventional couture silhouettes, like clinging gowns with thigh-high slits, “naked” gowns with high-low hemlines, floor-sweeping dresses with fitted bodices, and a few with beautiful feathered skirts. Many of the gowns featured feathery accents and embroidery, which spoke to the theme without being too literal, as did the beauty choice of an exaggerated cat-eye that mimicked the black mask of a swan. Evidenced by his perpetual presence on the red carpet, Hobeika has carved out a lane as one of the industry’s most formidable designers, and we can’t wait to see how this collection is worn by the A-listers who are browsing for something formal but totally original.
