“24 years ago when I came back here to Lebanon everyone said to me ‘Nobody likes crafted objects in the Middle East,’ laughs Nada Debs, the superstar Middle Eastern designer.
Coming from Japan, where she experienced its ancient appreciation for handcrafted works and reverence for true master craftsmen, she was eager to explore Middle Eastern craft traditions. Her search led her to Damascus to see the famous mother-of-pearl inlay workshops. “It was so magnificent I said to myself, ‘I have to find a way to make all this appealing to our generation!’ So I asked the craftsman, ‘Can you do this work but more minimal, some pearl inlay triangles on a bedside table, a basic design? It was very zen. Then it all just took on a life of its own.”