To create his new summer couture collection Ellie Saab lent the mood and colors from the paintings of Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema – the English painter of Dutch origin, who lived in the XIX century. Alma Tadema, renowned for his antique style, was called a “marble artist”. Gentle colors of the emerging spring: pink, blue, purple, cream; richness of textures and silhouettes, combining graceful monumentality with feminine ease, take us to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, to the ancient Greece. The heroine of Elie Saab is a goddess, descended from the Olympus. Disguised as a vestal virgin, she looks down from the steps of a temple at mere mortals who cannot resist her beauty.

As the show continues the colors thicken. Monochrome-black looks are preceded by three amazing dresses, made in flower degrade.

A pleasant surprise: traditional sequins, laces and appliqué, a must of every Ellie Saab show, alternate with more restrained pleated dresses. Perhaps the red carpets trends unfolding before our eyes are changing, bringing in a brilliant simplicity to sometimes overly saturated images.

Photo credits: Elie Saab