Nada Debs

Nada Debs grew up in Japan in a Lebanese family. She is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design in the United States. Nada has spent significant periods of time living and traveling around the world, exploring the connections between different cultures. She now lives in Dubai and Beirut where she established her studio twenty years ago, keen to safeguard the artisanal legacy of the region and committed to revisiting fine crafts through her signature design. Her multicultural approach has made her one of the most renowned designers in the Near and Middle East. In September 2023, the Institut du Monde Arabe (Arab World Institute, Paris) awarded her with the Design Grand Prix d'Honneur.

Her work spans several scales and practices: from object and furniture design to one-off commissions in the fields of design, art, fashion, jewellery and interior design. In each project, she cleverly distills culture and craftsmanship in pieces imbued with emotional resonance that embody a human story and a sense of belonging. Indeed Nada Debs does not only believe in form and function. She values connections – to places, to others, and to our own identity in the wide world.

The materials she chooses all tell a tactile story. For her, the human hand is a voice, and the artisan a storyteller. She describes craft as a skill that carries a memory, but also as a feeling that extends beyond geography, language and culture. As a result, her creative process combines ideas, skills and techniques gathered from her travels to form a unique cultural interaction. "My work is driven by a belief in the power of design to cross time and boundaries and touch us on a primal level."