The collectors of Lebanon’s fashion past

Lebanese style once traveled on paper. Glossy magazines, boutique posters, and advertisements for tailors, perfumeries, and festive nights documented how Beirut dressed, danced, and imagined itself, especially in the years before the civil war, when the city carried a reputation for sophistication across the region.

Much of that paper has since been lost to fires, relocations, and neglect. A small community of collectors now hunts for what survives in flea markets, family attics, and old bookshops.

The archivist at home

Joya Bou Chedid, 42, a consultant, started collecting a few years ago. “I was clearing my grandmother’s apartment and found a stack of magazines under her bed, wrapped in a bedsheet,” she told The Beiruter. “She had kept them since the 50s, and on the covers were women in sculpted bouffants and wide-collared dresses, looking utterly in command.”

That stack became an obsession. Today her collection fills several shelves, organized by era. She pays attention to the details of the time, the cinched waists of the late 1950s, the bold geometric prints and bell sleeves of the early 1970s, the tailored suits that working women began to wear. “The magazines included sewing patterns and tailor advertisements, which tells you how fashion worked then. You chose a fabric, visited a seamstress, and wore something made only for you.”

The advertisements matter as much as the editorials. “A small ad for a boutique will name the street, the phone number, even the fabrics in stock. It maps a Beirut that no longer exists.” She handles every issue with cotton gloves. “These pages are fragile. I feel like I’m holding someone’s memory, so I treat it that way.”

From archive to creative fuel

Lara Mohsen, 28, a freelance creative director, came to the pages through her work. “I was researching references for a campaign and kept finding the same recycled Western moodboards,” she told The Beiruter. “Then a friend handed me an old Lebanese fashion weekly, and I realized the richest inspiration was sitting in our own backyard.”

She now scans posters and magazine spreads to study typography, color palettes, and photography. A concert poster from the 1960s, with hand-drawn lettering and saturated oranges, shaped one of her recent brand identities. “Everything was illustrated by hand. The imperfections gave it personality, and that feels fresh now, when so much design looks polished to the point of sameness.”

Her favorite finds are fashion shoots staged around Beirut itself, models posed on the Corniche, in front of seaside hotels, along café terraces. “The clothes were glamorous, but the backdrop was the star. You saw a city confident enough to be the setting for its own story.” She also sees a lesson in the way style was presented. “Designers back then were celebrated by name. Looking at those pages makes me want to credit and champion local talent the same way.”

Collecting as cultural preservation

For Diane Nahas, 31, who owns a marketing agency, the motivation is partly commercial and partly personal. “I work in an industry obsessed with what’s next,” she reflected. “Collecting keeps me honest, because it reminds me that Lebanese brands have been telling stories for generations.”

Her collection leans toward posters and promotional material, boutique openings, perfume campaigns, airline advertisements from the era when travel itself was a fashion statement. She tracks them down through online groups and the weekend markets, sometimes paying more for a single poster than for a dress. “People ask if I’m crazy. I answer that a dress eventually wears out, but a poster from 1968 documents how an entire generation wanted to look.”

She believes the archive also reshaped how younger Lebanese see their heritage. “My team notices how stylish the past was, how confident the tailoring and the typography were. That counters the idea that all good taste comes from abroad.” Diane has begun lending pieces for pop-up exhibitions. “Seeing strangers lean toward a framed advertisement and smile in recognition made it all worthwhile. A grandmother stood in front of one for ten minutes. She told me she had worn that exact dress.”

Each issue and poster records how Lebanon dressed, designed, and dreamed in an earlier era. The collectors protect fragile paper, but what they preserve is a belief that Lebanese style has a long history of its own, and that it deserves to be recalled.