Selected 2011

Nada Debs

  • Current company Nada Debs
  • Industry Retail

Lebanese furniture designer Nada Debs mixes the aesthetic and craft traditions of the Middle East with elegant designs reminiscent of the Far East. Nada’s work has been featured in the New York Times and Vogue, among other prestigious publications. Manufactured by artisans in Lebanon, Nada’s products are displayed in top furniture stores worldwide, including locations in New York, Dubai, and Cairo.

Nada’s ability to capture and transmit cultural aesthetics comes from her history as a practiced observer and cultural outsider. Her family moved to Japan when she was a year old. Nada returned to Lebanon in 1980 to attend the American University of Beirut, and went on to study at RISD. Afterwards she went on to work for an architect, but continued working on her passion on the side.

Her furniture business was incubated by the Lebanese community in London, where she lived from 1992-2000. There, she has her first child and began designing children’s furniture. World of her talent spread and she began designing furniture upon request. She returned to Lebanon, and began mixing pearl inlay with modern aesthetics. She turned her home into a showroom, and was soon hired to design the children’s bedrooms for the Jordanian Royal family. In 2004, she decided to move her business out of her living room and into a boutique, where East & East was born.

Her work has cultivated an enviable brand that represents local design and production while maintain the exclusivity and high prices often reserved for furniture imported from Europe.

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