Lebanese designer Eli Saab believes, Beirut has all the ambition and capacity to become worlds next fashion capital and rival New York, Paris and Milan. "Beirut has the potential to be a good capital of fashion," Saab said "Lebanese designers have emerged and I am proud of them, especially those that have a distinct style of their own." Unfortunately, few are known outside the region and Saab in the first to exhibit his designs outside Lebanon.

Lebenese press has portrayed Saab as a precocious genius when aged 18, he set up shop in Beirut in 1982, at the height of the country's 15-year civil war.

"When I started out, there was no fashion scene in Lebanon, or in the Arab world for that matter. I was doing something that was missing in the region," Saab says.

His collections, however enjoy popularity among the likes of Catherine Zeta-Jones, Liz Hurley and Sharon Stone as well as Jordan's glamorous Queen Rania, and so his prophecies are not unlikely to come true.