Lebanese Label Yassmin Saleh Drops Elegant Yet Fluid SS’23 Collection

Presenting a range of expertly-fashioned new pieces, from occasionwear to daily staples, Beirut-based designer Yassmin Saleh has combined structural fluidity and supreme attention to detail to deliver this year’s stunning Spring-Summer collection.

Saleh’s talents saw her gaining industry recognition from her days as a student; she’s trained under the tutelage of Elie Saab’s atelier in Beirut and her final year collection was awarded the Prize of Excellence in Craftsmanship.

This excellence is evidenced beyond a shadow of a doubt with her latest drop. A veritable visual treat of textural variety and structural complexity, the young designer gives us a masterclass in embroidery, textile creation, and fabric manipulation as she delicately pushes outside the conventions of wearable feminine silhouettes.

Saleh makes use of a range of conventional and unconventional fabrics to deliver a highly textural collection which oscillates between the hard and the soft, the opaque and the blurred as well as the timeless and the contemporary.

The collection plays boldly with creative cuts, yet everything is clearly structured in response to the female form. Even pieces that seem to be a total departure from the typical womenswear silhouettes are, on second glance, inextricably tied to the form.

A video shared on the label’s instagram gives us a BTS peek on how they create their own textiles from scratch to create the Mountain Gown, a clear standout piece, as well as their eco-printed fabric which infuses pigment from real flowers into garments.

In fact, a lot of the looks featured in the collection average out somewhere in the middle: many pieces are a playful reimagining of a classic silhouette.

Fashion-forward, yet at the same time effortlessly wearable, each piece manages to be totally set apart from the next in focus and fit whilst maintaining a cohesiveness which ties the whole collection together.