He's the most popular Middle Eastern designer in the world, his glamorous frocks adorning celebrities from Cannes to Hollywood; he has launched residences in Dubai and a yacht in Abu Dhabi; but it was only this month that Elie Saab opened his first store in the UAE. The 250 square metre Dubai Mall boutique, which is currently stocking the spring/summer 2010 collection, opened this month, and although the party will officially start with a big launch in September, we decided to mark the occasion now by inviting Saab to share with us his original sketches for the collection.
The spring/summer collection is a special one. When I interviewed Saab last year, in Beirut, he had just shown his autumn/winter 2009/10 collection in Paris and was explicit about the fact that his style was evolving into something just as glamorous yet sleeker, more modern and more pared down. "The identity of the house is still there, but it's more shaped, more straightened, graphic, more purified," he told me, adding that the coming years would, he believed, impose a new fashion direction. The continuity in the summer collection, as he cements his new style, is evident, with dresses that are clean and simple yet devastatingly glamorous.
As he was talking to me, in a room at his atelier, he was compulsively sketching too, a habitual multi-tasker, and he discussed his celebrity fans, saying: "When a celebrity chooses to wear a dress of mine, this means she's choosing my vision of a woman. If she didn't like the vision of Elie Saab she wouldn't come and choose a dress of his. The A-list have all the choices of all the designers in the world, so when they choose an Elie Saab dress this is because they are convinced of my vision for the woman he wants."
Well, you don't get much closer to the vision of Elie Saab than his original sketches, exclusively in Arts & Life.
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Director: Laila Abbas
Starring: Yasmine Al Massri, Clara Khoury, Kamel El Basha, Ashraf Barhoum
Rating: 4/5
The chef's advice
Troy Payne, head chef at Abu Dhabi’s newest healthy eatery Sanderson’s in Al Seef Resort & Spa, says singles need to change their mindset about how they approach the supermarket.
“They feel like they can’t buy one cucumber,” he says. “But I can walk into a shop – I feed two people at home – and I’ll walk into a shop and I buy one cucumber, I’ll buy one onion.”
Mr Payne asks for the sticker to be placed directly on each item, rather than face the temptation of filling one of the two-kilogram capacity plastic bags on offer.
The chef also advises singletons not get too hung up on “organic”, particularly high-priced varieties that have been flown in from far-flung locales. Local produce is often grown sustainably, and far cheaper, he says.
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The specs
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Managing the separation process
- Choose your nursery carefully in the first place
- Relax – and hopefully your child will follow suit
- Inform the staff in advance of your child’s likes and dislikes.
- If you need some extra time to talk to the teachers, make an appointment a few days in advance, rather than attempting to chat on your child’s first day
- The longer you stay, the more upset your child will become. As difficult as it is, walk away. Say a proper goodbye and reassure your child that you will be back
- Be patient. Your child might love it one day and hate it the next
- Stick at it. Don’t give up after the first day or week. It takes time for children to settle into a new routine.And, finally, don’t feel guilty.
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Jigra
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Brief scores:
Juventus 3
Dybala 6', Bonucci 17', Ronaldo 63'
Frosinone 0
if you go
Getting there
Etihad (Etihad.com), Emirates (emirates.com) and Air France (www.airfrance.com) fly to Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport, from Abu Dhabi and Dubai respectively. Return flights cost from around Dh3,785. It takes about 40 minutes to get from Paris to Compiègne by train, with return tickets costing €19. The Glade of the Armistice is 6.6km east of the railway station.
Staying there
On a handsome, tree-lined street near the Chateau’s park, La Parenthèse du Rond Royal (laparenthesedurondroyal.com) offers spacious b&b accommodation with thoughtful design touches. Lots of natural woods, old fashioned travelling trunks as decoration and multi-nozzle showers are part of the look, while there are free bikes for those who want to cycle to the glade. Prices start at €120 a night.
More information: musee-armistice-14-18.fr ; compiegne-tourisme.fr; uk.france.fr
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SPECS
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Power: 235hp
Torque: 350Nm
Transmission: Nine-speed automatic
Price: From Dh167,500 ($45,000)
On sale: Now
ULTRA PROCESSED FOODS
- Carbonated drinks, sweet or savoury packaged snacks, confectionery, mass-produced packaged breads and buns
- Margarines and spreads; cookies, biscuits, pastries, cakes, and cake mixes, breakfast cereals, cereal and energy bars
- Energy drinks, milk drinks, fruit yoghurts and fruit drinks, cocoa drinks, meat and chicken extracts and instant sauces
- Infant formulas and follow-on milks, health and slimming products such as powdered or fortified meal and dish substitutes
- Many ready-to-heat products including pre-prepared pies and pasta and pizza dishes, poultry and fish nuggets and sticks, sausages, burgers, hot dogs, and other reconstituted meat products, powdered and packaged instant soups, noodles and desserts
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Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson
Director: Todd Phillips
Rating: 2/5
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How tumultuous protests grew
- A fuel tax protest by French drivers appealed to wider anti-government sentiment
- Unlike previous French demonstrations there was no trade union or organised movement involved
- Demonstrators responded to online petitions and flooded squares to block traffic
- At its height there were almost 300,000 on the streets in support
- Named after the high visibility jackets that drivers must keep in cars
- Clashes soon turned violent as thousands fought with police at cordons
- An estimated two dozen people lost eyes and many others were admitted to hospital
How to register as a donor
1) Organ donors can register on the Hayat app, run by the Ministry of Health and Prevention
2) There are about 11,000 patients in the country in need of organ transplants
3) People must be over 21. Emiratis and residents can register.
4) The campaign uses the hashtag #donate_hope
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.