May 17, in a traditional Lebanese red tile roof house in Batroun…In the salon, fourteen young models just finished their preparations for the very first fashion show of the young designer Lara Khoury. With their long eyelashes and vaporous hairstyles, they look like they just went out from one of Gustav Klimt’s paintings. In the wide garden of the house, seven paintings of the Austrian painter are displayed in order to have a rather original fashion show, as certified by the guests when the event was launched: instead of walking along a podium, the models pose in turn for a few minutes behind the wooden frames on the lawn.

The spectators are invited to walk around the frames to admire the living paintings and discover the dresses of Lara Khoury. At the age of 23, in her first collection, the young Lebanese designer was inspired by Gustav Klimt, she used to “observe his paintings displayed on the banks of Seine river in Paris”, she remembered. Among the 21 models of her first “Prêt à Couture” collection, a concept, as its name indicates, which is half way between the ready-to-wear and the haute couture, many of her dresses are of geometrical forms that remind you of the symbolist painter’s style.