Elie Saab remembers the fateful day in Beirut: I hold on to hope and I will not emigrate
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Beirut’s dresses, filled with tough looms, flew out, and the red color sneaked into the fabrics of the international Lebanese designer Elie Saab, who found his soft architecture had been shattered to the ground by the explosion of the city's port.
And the explosion that destroyed the port of Beirut on an empire made by a man who slept on silk and woke up to weave the dreams of society's women.
Although the storm lasted for a few seconds, to Elie Saab this seemed like an eternity, as he walked to ensure that his 200 employees, including his son, were safe.
Sitting next to his son, Elie Saab, Elie Jr. remembers the fateful day when he saw his son covered in his blood. He says: “When I saw him covered in blood, I said: It is not reasonable, I did not believe, I said he was injured, but there is nothing wrong, praise be to God, that he managed to survive. It was a quarter of an hour, which could take two days. Not a father, son, son and father issue. The issue is that we all work as if we are a family under one roof. We care for everyone ».
Saab summarizes those moments by saying, "It was like an ugly dream."
The explosion of large quantities of ammonium nitrate, which had been stored for years in a warehouse in the port without safety measures, caused a cloud of thanksgiving to the mushrooms on August 4 to rise, killing 178 people, injuring 6000 and destroying entire areas in Beirut.
The blast destroyed shops of other designers who have fashion houses in downtown Beirut, including Zuhair Murad, Rabih Kayrouz, Abed Mahfouz and others, and some of them were also injured.
With a long sigh, Saab repeated with his son, Elie Jr. a common expression derived from the family name, and the two men said, "It was a lot of difficult thing."
The Lebanese fashion designer experienced all the years of the civil war that ravaged Lebanon between 1975 and 1990 with its details and torments, as he lived in the Ain al-Rummaneh area at the front lines in Beirut. But this time the experience was different for him.
The August 4 blast revived the civil war for Elie Saab, as he said: “We certainly went back to the same details, to the same smell, to dust, to glass. We did not like to live this thing, what is necessary, and we had what we lived. ”
Like many Lebanese, the 56-year-old felt the explosion was on his doorstep.
Saab recounts the first moments of the blast: “The way and the gun (push) that came to us, no one was left. We all took off. We were standing and working, each one being pushed two or three meters away. Tohma (flavor) from the war was new to us. ''
Saab and his working team were not waiting for a devastating crisis of this kind, especially since the Lebanese were in dire need of an economic recovery in light of the worst economic crisis the country is going through. "The Lebanese have problems much, much bigger than that," he added. But this thing has become unspeakable. It was too ugly. ”
Despite the tragedy of the scenes, Elie Saab sits watching his country, which was made of luxurious cloth and collapsed before his eyes, but today he announces the design of the dress of hope, removing the smell of destruction and dust, and does not let broken glass occupy the destroyed places.
Saab does not intend to go to Beirut and emigrate, as he says, “I am a picture of many Lebanese youth. I do not want to be arrogant to myself or to rise above the box (the punch) that we ate. I must be like Beirut every time she sheds herself, rises from under the destruction and returns sweeter than she was.
The Saab fashion house, located in the center of Beirut, was not the only loss for him, as the lightning explosion destroyed his heritage home in the most affected area of Gemmayze.
Saab owns a traditional Lebanese house in the Gemmayzeh region, topped with heritage columns, dome archways, high ceilings, marble and arabesque tiles, and lit by rare and expensive chandeliers.
Repair work began at his huge fashion house in downtown Beirut, to restore work as it was before the explosion. At the same time, he intends to work on returning his home to what it was.
The Reuters TV camera documented scenes of destruction and devastation in his home, as the force of the explosion destroyed all his belongings, so the arches and chandeliers were broken, the facades were removed, the balconies leaned against each other, and the marble mixed with the rubble.
In the folds of the ruin, a velvet hanger spun as if to search for her dresses from the rubble.
In the other corner, an old music record by the artist, Fayrouz, titled (The Real Lebanon Come) appears, split into two parts and the names of her songs were destroyed, but Saab decides to return to the core of the song to rebuild what the explosion destroyed.