SALIM AZZAM
Salim Azzam established his eponymous label in 2016 in his homeland of Lebanon, after completing a master’s degree in visual communication design at the University of Alberta. His tailored pieces are embroidered with his illustrated motifs by local craftswomen in Mount Lebanon, heritage-honouring designs that have won him the 2019 Fashion Trust Arabia Prize for ready-to-wear, and subsequently the backing of global retailer, Matches Fashion, which stocked his Autumn/Winter 2020 collection. He spoke to Carmen Bellot about the effects that last year’s Beirut explosion, the fall of the government and the pandemic have had on his business, and how that’s reinforced his commitment to portraying Lebanese culture authentically.
Interview by Carmen BellotPortrait by Augustine Paredes
Carmen Bellot How have you dealt with the unprecedented pressures of the past year on the industry, as well as the social and financial issues and problems in Lebanon caused by the pandemic?
Salim Azzam We have this energy as Lebanese people; we’re from a country that has never actually given us anything. It is craft, creativity and a bunch of people who have something to share with the world, who have been covering up for the government and every bad thing that is happening in the region. We don’t have a system that supports us; designers in the region are never really acknowledged in our own countries and we only get famous when we start dressing people outside. Imagine the pressure that we have: we’re designers from a region that people don’t want to talk about and we’re always associated with a region that is struggling. Yet Beirut is one of the most creative cities in the MENA [Middle East and North Africa] region. I came to the realisation not long ago that the type of momentum that the Lebanese have comes from the fact that we have never been given anything. We have to work three times as hard to snap the same opportunity as people who have everything they need, from fabric resources to government support to suppliers. We have this energy as Lebanese people; we’re survivors, we know we’ll push through, but it really gets so tiring. It was the first time in my life actually that I questioned this type of pressure. The type of work I do is very much based on the community aspect, having to support an entire team of 45 women who’ve been working with me for the past three years. One of the reasons why I stayed on and why I’m pushing through is because they understand that if I go home, they all go home. I think we have to put this energy into trying to help them, and creatively we have to shift emotionally and translate all this suffering into beautiful things. This is what I did in my previous collection and what we’re doing in the upcoming collection.
CB Your designs are authentic to you, as well as to your culture. Do you feel any pressure to represent your country in a way that’s different from the received perception?
SA There has always been that stigma of the region. When people think of Lebanon, one, a lot of people don’t know where it is, and two, they think of it as a struggling region full of terrorists, bombs and war. But the funny part is that we designers don’t see it like that. I have so much pride in the craft, our culture and the people who are so humble, so ever since I started creating, I’ve felt that pressure to actually show the world what we do. This is why every single article I talk about Lebanon and I go into the minor details, because this is what makes this country special; these are the treasures that I feel like me and so many other fellow creators hold tight. We’ve always been responsible for cleaning up the image of the government and the system. It’s so funny because not everyone sees that; people who are not in the creative field do not understand how the creative people in the industry have put the name of the country on the map. Honestly though, I try not to think about this pressure when I create. I’m a proud Lebanese; I’m proud of where I am and what I do. That is always in the back of my head when I create, but at the same time, it doesn’t really matter to me.
CB Brands that have done well during the pandemic have stayed true to their message and their identity, and the ones that haven’t are those that have struggled. Do you think creativity is part of your survival mode?
SA I think creativity and what I do has been my way of moving forward in life in general. I often see my collections as therapy, because as an artist, I always process my emotions and by sharing them with the world, I feel like a weight has been lifted off my heart. Having said that, I don’t want to portray the struggle of my people as always being very joyful and happy. But we have a way of expressing ourselves, and when you express yourself and you feel like the world is listening to what you have to say, that’s where happiness comes from. Because creating and putting something out there is one thing and having people appreciate and look at what you’re doing is something else. During these difficult times this has helped a lot, as has the fact that I was able to create a collection that processes emotions, and I’m always satisfied with the way I channel my emotions through my work. I also find myself struggling when I don’t create; if I sit for three days and I’m not sketching or thinking of the next collection I get agitated.
CB Like you said, creating is therapeutic in a global sense, as well as individually. It’s the first act of progression in any field.
SA We don’t produce anything in this country. Even the wheat that we eat comes from abroad. We buy some fabrics and resources from here, but with our suppliers, even a paper bag to put your clothes in is expensive because it comes from abroad. When I started creating this brand, I wanted to see what I could do with our existing resources, see how I could best action them and highlight what we do. And during the pandemic, I realised that everyone within Lebanon should start looking around at what’s really missing in this country. Why do we import everything when we have these huge, abandoned cotton factories? That’s why a lot of small businesses can’t continue because they don’t have trust funds or dollars, and the euro exchange rate is so high that they can’t buy resources.
CB The work that you do with the craftswomen and their embroidery is such an authentic and beautiful way of honouring your country. How collaborative is the process?
SA It’s always a back-and-forth discussion. It wasn’t that way when I first started creating, because I first had to understand their language completely, because embroidery in the MENA region has a lot of coding to it. It’s a way of expressing family affiliation, like occasions of love or funerals. I had to understand the way they think when they embroider. All the craft techniques that they’ve been practising for years would be used on display pieces like curtains and tablecloths. The more I was able to understand and respect the craft, the more we started working in harmony. I fully understand the skill set of every single woman on the team, and I’m illustrating to those skills in my head. When I do a drawing, I colour in the direction of the stitching so they know the direction of the needle. I know beforehand who is going to be embroidering which specific piece, because even if they all embroider the same thing, they all do it differently. I never create without consultation, I wouldn’t say I’m the type of designer who would just bring them a motif and give it to them to embroider. It took me some time to understand what works and what does not work, and I’m still in the process of understanding fully what they do. Every single woman joining the team comes in with a new approach; if she’s from a different region, she will have a completely different way of doing things. Even between one another, they always share knowledge. It’s an ongoing journey and for me the most exciting part of creating is the process, not the product.
CB Do you come into the process with an idea, which then changes and is manipulated while working with the women?
SA The newest collection is a departure from the old world, and I really wanted to celebrate traditional motifs that have been worked with for years. It’s the first collection where I haven’t come in with my illustrations, but dug into actual historical motifs. I’ve taken them and deconstructed them and created a big collection out of them. That happened when I was in the lockdown, when I realised that there are so many beautiful hidden motifs. I wanted to bring them out and study them and see how they’ve been worked on for years. My mother came to me and said, “Look, this is something that I had to create before I got married”, because it was a ritual in the region. I was looking at all these beautiful motifs and knew we needed to have a celebration of these things, not necessarily a goodbye, because those are still going to be there, but a reimagining of that old world. The women started bringing these archives to the atelier, so I started putting everything on the wall and shooting them for future references. I think the documentation of history and identity is something super important. I think I could honestly and proudly say that I’m the only person who has been very curious about this type of preservation; even the few ateliers that still exist in the area don’t have this type of documentation. The people who join my team are people in their 40s and 50s and older, and none of the younger generation are excited about this project, because they see the craft as outdated.
CB Do you think your work is helping to start changing those ideas?
SA People asked me, why not something other than fashion? But this is what I love about fashion – it allows my pieces and the craft to travel and mix between people. It still excites me to see an embroidered piece being worn and to see people asking, “What is that?” Can you imagine the amount of stories being shared when somebody is wearing that statement piece? I know that people ask about our pieces and what the motifs represent. And I think fashion, in a way, allows those pieces to travel outside the borders of their home. My plan is to make people fall in love with embroidery again. We do a lot of embroidery workshops, and it fascinates me how every single time, we’re fully booked and men come and do it, too. It’s also a very divine, ritualised act. I feel like the women meditate. When you’re in it, your focus is on the technique, and it brings so much peace. It’s a dream of mine, at some point, to open a school in the region. When we started giving tutorials, people would message me and ask, “Aren’t you afraid that you’re putting your secrets out there?” But the purpose of the project is to have people fall in love with it again and do it in any way possible.
CB As your business and your brand grows, how do you balance still being authentic to the stories while also expanding your markets?
SA First of all, I have to understand what are the type of things that I would like to share, and how can I abstract the illustrations to make anyone wear them, even if they don’t understand the backstory. The biggest challenge for me is that I’m not a business person. I have to teach myself everything and read books all of the time. When I travelled to New York, I did this workshop with Matches. They thought I was underpriced, and this should be on the website for triple its price. But then I had to explain that in Lebanon, people don’t have that purchasing power. This year has made me realise that I should stop thinking about Lebanon when it comes to sales! It’s where all the inspiration and production comes, but you shouldn’t base a business model on such a small market. ◉