Zuhair Murad (Tapa dura)

A glittering world of delicate details and romantic drama, the couture collections of Zuhair Murad are instantly transporting; each expression of the designer's work reveals an enchanting tale of striking elegance and modern refinement. A Zuhair Murad couture piece requires hundreds of hours of handcrafted beading, embroidery, and finishing by his Paris and Beirut ateliers, and his eye for show- stopping detail has defined some of the most iconic red-carpet moments of the last decade. With a loyal following of fashion's most influential stylists, editors, and celebrities like Jennifer Lopez, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Sofi?a Vergara, Celine Dion, Kylie Minogue, and Rita Ora, Zuhair Murad creates couture confections of unparalleled glamour.

From the beginning, women have been at the center of Zuhair Murad's life; examples of beauty and grace, of elegance and power, to be revered and celebrated. His work, his passion, is making not only his dreams, but their dreams into reality; his couture dresses are canvases for conveying moods and emotion. Murad's inspiration is always a woman with an hourglass silhouette, a celebration of the female form divine, reinventing her each season. Drawing inspiration from past and present, his imagination conjures the ideal of a strong, powerful and distinctly contemporary woman interlaced with the sublimation of the eternal feminine. His roots in Lebanon, a melting pot of cultures, histories, beliefs and aesthetics, poised at the crossroads of Asia, Europe and Africa, form a unique vantage point from which to observe multiple views, like a kaleidoscope. A postmodern voyager, Zuhair Murad boldly and innovatively combines colors and decorations, shapes and fabrics, artfully draping women in fine beading and embroidery evocative of other times and places. 500 illustrations.