LIFESTYLE WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2013 Fashion37 New York designer vows to kickstart Mideast fashion

Lebanon-born and New York- based fashion designer Reem Acra poses in her store on Fifth Avenue October 30, 2013 in New York.—AFP photos

Lily Allen's fashion firm has gone bust

he ‘Smile’ hitmaker quit her music career in 2010 to focus on her clothing compa- Tny Lucy In Disguise LLP, which she set up with her older sister Sarah Owen. However, the Mail on Sunday newspaper is now reporting the company has been forced into liquida- tion because of its massive debt to a leading manufacturer. The Reem Acra Fall 2014 Bridal collection show on October 11, 2013. Musician arrives at the Hol- Aurora Fashions - whose brands include lywood premiere of Relativity Media’s Coast, Oasis and Warehouse - was given a “Romeo and Juliet” on September 24, compulsory winding up order against Lucy 2013, wearing a Reem Acra dress. In Disguise in the High Court earlier this year, with Aurora’s chief financial officer, Richard hree decades after escaping Lebanon’s civil war to think there will be opportunities to help designers de- bridalwear. She later moved into evening dresses fol- Glanville, alleging they are still owed £12,000. fulfill her dream of making it in New York fashion, velop and grow the industry,” she added. With 30 years’ lowed by ready-to-wear. Acra’s clothes are now shown Richard told the Mail on Sunday: “We had to TReem Acra’s client list reads like a who’s who of fashion experience in the US and Asia, Acra has plenty at New York Fashion Week and sold in over 150 stores make numerous phone calls and send several Hollywood’s A-list. Catherine Zeta-Jones, , of insights to share. The designer, who has four homes, worldwide. In today’s global market, she says, her main letters to chase up payments. It has been a , , Kate Hudson, Eva Longoria are two in New York, one in Lebanon and another in Nash- challenge is now to design for all women, not just those very drawn-out affair and we gave them every just a few of the famous names who favor her luxuri- ville, got her first break while studying at the American from one or two countries. opportunity to pay the money back before ously embellished evening wear. From the world of mu- University in Beirut. There, she impressed a visiting “When I am designing I have to think about the applying to put it into administration. sic, country singer LeAnn Rimes got married in one her fashion editor with an embroidered silk organza gown woman in Saint Tropez; I have to think of the Chinese “I don’t think Lucy In Disguise has been creations—a low-cut chiffon robe slashed to the thigh she made from her mother’s dining room tablecloth woman and I have to think of the Middle East all in one particularly successful because they have and embroidered with pearls—while singer-songwriter and wore to a party. dress.” Nor is her fashion targeted at women of any not been able to pay their bills on time. The Taylor Swift chose a strapless Reem Acra wedding gown specific age, said the designer whose personal favorite remainder is quite a small sum, but we have for one of her videos. Design for all women for evening wear is vintage ivory and pale platinum. been forced to take this course because we Acra is proud of her achievements, explaining that is The editor immediately offered to host a fashion “My woman is not of a particular age. I erase her age in can’t get hold of anyone to settle the debt.” she is the only Middle Eastern woman to establish her show for Acra and in 1983 she found herself in New my mind,” she said. Lily and Sarah had also launched a second own fashion house from scratch in New York. Now, with York studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology. “It Her Middle East plan, meanwhile, is still on the business, Lucy In Disguise Collection Ltd, success firmly under her belt, she is turning her atten- was 100 percent difficult,” she said, adding that there drawing board, although she is confident it will yield which was expected to sell clothes they tion back to the Middle East where she wants to help had been no question in her mind that she would have results. “I would say they are at the very beginning (in designed themselves, but it was dissolved last kickstart a home-grown fashion industy. The designer is to leave Lebanon, then in the grip of civil war, to make a the Middle East) and fashion does not get established month. The sisters’ shop in Soho, London, is working on a plan for the region although she stresses career for herself. “(But) I knew from the beginning that in two days, fashion takes time,” she said. But she added: still trading under the same name, but has it is in its early stages. “There is no (fashion) industry something would happen for me in New York in a good “There will be a Middle East fashion industry.”—AFP new ownership which doesn’t include the pop there today. But is there an eagerness for it? Absolutely,” way.” star. A spokesperson said: “Lily is no longer she told AFP in an interview in Paris. After stints in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China, she said involved in the shop and has not been since “I am getting involved.... There is an eagerness in she eventually felt she knew the US fashion industry 2011.”—Bang Showbiz these countries; they want to expand, they want to inside out and was ready to branch out on her own. be part of the fashion scene. “I will help it to develop. I In 1997 she launched her own label, beginning with

In this image released by ABC, actress Kerry In this image released by ABC actress Kerry In this Nov 11, 2013 image released by ABC, costume designer Lyn Paolo stands with costumes for the Washington as Olivia Pope wears a Christian Washington wears a Rubin Singer gown, left, ABC drama series, “Scandal,” in the show’s wardrobe closet on the Sunset Gower lot in the Hollywood Dior coat in a scene from the political drama with Scott Foley in a scene from “Scandal.” section of Los Angeles. series “Scandal.” Washington’s ‘Scandal’ closet holds many outfits otice anything different about Olivia Pope’s look this season on Olivia’s closet is as big as the Manhattan Starbucks where Paolo met a and stuffing them into folders. One was “an African-American woman in “Scandal”? It’s still full of the very best designer labels, and her suits reporter. light clothes and a custom Louise Green hat,” she said. “I had an image of N- a good chunk of her wardrobe - blend an aggressive edge with a Paolo shops from the runway, at department stores, from windows and Diana Ross. I would have liked a bigger brim on the hat, but our sets are too sexy shape while staying professional. But in Season 3, there’s a hint more online. When she was on vacation this past summer on a cruise, she fell in dark and you couldn’t see Kerry’s face.” color, and many of the silhouettes are asymmetrical, showing her just a bit love with a fellow passenger’s outfit. She told the passenger the clothing Paolo also works on Showtime’s “Shameless,” and her problem there is off-kilter. “Hopefully viewers will see the emotional reason to make these tag was showing (it wasn’t) so she could “fix it” and steal a peek at the label. that the characters are supposed to have a gritty appearance, but Emmy changes, and we’ve amped up the fashion, too, because we needed it for Is there anything in that bulging “Scandal” closet that Paolo would like to Rossum, the most fashion-y of the cast, is a little model-like, she says. “You’ll the story,” explains costume designer Lyn Paolo. borrow? “I’m a uniform girl. I dislike dressing myself. It’s all black and white look at her and say, ‘She looks too good in that!’” There are other stars that Olivia has a full life and - just like everyone else - needs the right clothes in my closet - I wear whatever is easiest to get me through the day.” Paolo would like the opportunity to dress, including Patricia Heaton and Ju- for it, says Paolo, who talks about her favorite character on ABC’s hit inside- She is, after all, dressing up to 80 people per episode. “We should call it lianna Margulies, whom she calls “so elegant and stylish.” “I have characters the-Beltway show (Thursdays at 10 p.m. EST) as if she were real. Kerry ‘Scramble’ not ‘Scandal.’” Olivia was easy, though. Paolo had her look down and their wardrobes ready to go. I just need a show for them.”—AP Washington, a fashion It Girl in her own right, plays Olivia, described by the before she knew Washington would be the star - and maybe even before network as a “professional fixer.” The show has to buy the clothes and keep “Scandal” was pitched as a pilot. Paolo, whose credits also include “The them because Paolo is unsure if creator Shonda West Wing” and “ER,” says she keeps dozens of files on imaginary characters, Rhimes will want to revisit a particular scene in a flashback. As a result, cutting out photos and jotting down notes about what they would wear