There are certain pressures that come with being a pioneer. Responsibilities. Expectations. And even, in certain cases, restrictions. Just ask Nada Debs.
It’s nearly 10 years since Debs opened her first shop, in Beirut, and introduced the world to her unique brand of modern Middle Eastern design – a delicate mix of traditional Arabic craftsmanship and a more minimalist aesthetic garnered from years spent living in Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom.
While the idea might not seem novel today, at the time it was groundbreaking – anathema, even. “For a lot of people, these traditional crafts were something sacred that you couldn’t touch. I had grown up in Japan and there wasn’t that same emotional attachment for me,” Debs explains on a recent visit to Dubai where her products are popular. “I remember taking an old rug and cutting it into an oval shape. Some Kuwaiti people walked into my showroom and saw it and said: ‘What have you done? How can you do such a thing?’ They were genuinely upset with me. I realised then how precious our old crafts are in the minds of people, and how breaking the rules was actually a bit shocking for them.”
It was a surprise, then, in those early days, to discover how receptive other people were to her work. At a time when many expats were returning to Lebanon after years abroad, Debs’ functional East-meets-West furniture and accessories struck a chord. “I use design as a vehicle to answer a lot of my own questions. And one of those questions was related to identity. I’m an Arab, but I was brought up in the West – how do I bridge that gap? When people saw my work, they said: ‘It looks very Zen, but it’s also very Middle Eastern.’ That’s when I realised that we can be Arab and we can be minimalist and we can be western. It can all work together.
“It helped me define who I was. And it turns out everyone is in the same situation. We’re all seeking to find that commonality. When I moved back to Lebanon, many other people were also coming back, having lived and studied abroad. They were missing home, and my furniture reminded them of who they were.” But how to explain the international appeal of her pieces? Debs attributes this, in part, to her extensive use of geometry, a “universal language that everybody can relate to”. But the answer also lies in what she poetically refers to as her “own personal Silk Route”.
“My great uncles go to Japan in 1917, through the Silk Route. My father goes to Japan in the 50s, following in their footsteps, and I grow up there. Subconsciously, I guess, I wanted to go back home, to find my roots. I call my journey back ‘my own personal Silk Route’. When people travel the Silk Route, they exchange ideas, and trade products and know-how. I grew up in Japan, studied in the States, lived in Europe and eventually moved back to Lebanon, and I picked up aesthetic ideals from every culture.
“In Japan, less is more, everything is about paring down and simplicity. The States is a new country; it’s about going back to basics. They’re very practical and functional; nothing is done for decorative purposes. While the Americans look to the future, in the UK they look to the past. They value antiques and there is an appreciation of crafts. Then I come to the Middle East and it’s very ornamental – all about the pattern and colour – and I’m also drawn to that. So, most of my work has a combination of all four. It is functional, minimalist, simple, it has some kind of pattern and includes craftsmanship.”
Ten years later and few regional designers have been able to match Debs in terms of novelty value, inventiveness and international appeal. Some of her pieces – the Floating Stool, Arabesque Modern Armchair and trademark mother-of-pearl mirrors, for example – have become almost emblematic, the yardsticks by which other designers creating contemporary Middle Eastern design must measure themselves. She’s also one of the few furniture designers in the region to have turned herself into a successful brand – so much so that a book focusing on her career is in the works and due for release at the end of next year. From a stylistic point of view, she has continued to evolve, constantly experimenting with new forms and materials.
She also remains committed to the region’s crafts industry and has launched #craftcool, an initiative designed to create awareness and revive interest in these dying arts. “It’s a wake-up call; a label where we can gather people who are taking crafts to another level. People are not taking crafts seriously. No one wants to work with their hands any more. Ideally, I would like to create this movement that people can join, almost like a guild, and create awareness, organise events, encourage people to work together and even introduce schools.”
And yet, despite having firmly established herself as the poster child of Middle Eastern craftsmanship and design, Debs has been keeping a rather low profile of late. We’ve heard very little of her over the last year or so. “I went quiet,” she admits. “I woke up one day last June and realised how unhappy I was. There was something wrong. I was at a crossroads. I expanded too fast and I was losing control of everything. I didn’t know where I wanted to go. Everybody was asking what my strategy was and I was saying: ‘Please don’t ask me that question. I don’t like the word anymore. What does it even mean?’”
A decade ago, Debs made furniture as a means of self expression and self-discovery; a way of exploring her own multifaceted identity. It was also something that she did to make her two young sons, who weren’t living with her at the time, proud. But somewhere along the way, she lost sight of that.
“I gave myself some time to ask myself what I wanted. I could either go back to the drawing board, just me and one designer, and quietly make a few pieces here and there. Or I could take it to the next level, take a big leap and truly go global. So I sat and thought about it. And I thought: ‘Why waste 10 years?’”
The company has been restructured and there’s a rebrand under way. It’s time for Nada Debs 2.0, the new, improved, global version. Given her previous form, it seems likely that she’ll be setting a whole new benchmark for those young regional designers currently trailing in her wake. And we couldn’t be happier for her.
