Lebanese-Palestinian Designer Elissar El-Hammoud on ‘Wearing Lebanon’

Once upon a time, there was a princess named Elissar, the daughter of the King of Tyre. After her father’s death, she fled from her treacherous brother, Pygmalion, crossing the Mediterranean Sea with an entourage of twenty virgins. Her journey eventually led her to the shores of modern-day Tunisia.

Desperate for a land of her own, Elissar negotiated with the reigning king, who proposed that she could claim as much of his land as she could mark out with a bull’s hide—in exchange for a substantial sum of gold. Ever resourceful and underestimated, Elissar agreed. Legend has it that she sliced the oxhide into the thinnest of strips, sewed them into a long thread, and cleverly laid it out to mark the borders of her Queendom.

Over time, Elissar became known as Elissa, Elishat, and later Dido, Queen of the Phoenicians and Carthage, though her origins remain deeply rooted in Lebanon. While her name has faded into history, for 25-year-old fashion designer Elissar El Hammoud, based in Berlin, it is both her birth name and the name of her brand.

Born to a Lebanese mother and a Palestinian father raised in Tyre, Elissar, too, is a diasporic creator, channeling her heritage into her craft. Her brand, Elissarrr (don’t forget the extra Rs), was conceived two years ago during her first trip to Lebanon since the pandemic of 2020. It was a visit steeped in reflection and nostalgia, coming four years after her first trip in 2018, before the 17 October Revolution, before Covid, and before the devastating Beirut Explosion.

Photo taken in 2022 by Elissar El Hammoud of Kfarchouba, Lebanon, entitled ‘Towels at the Border.’ Available as a print.

On her return to Lebanon in 2022, Elissar and Tyre were both markedly changed. The photographs she had taken in 2018 around her grandmother’s house in Tyre became capsules of memory and the foundation of her debut collection, Heimweh—a German word for homesickness. By digitally printing these images onto lycra, she created dresses, tops, and skirts that represented a form of cultural catharsis.

During her 2022 visit to Tyre, Elissar photographed her ‘Heimweh’ pieces against the backdrops of her original 2018 photos.

Being a child of diaspora often means navigating an internal conflict of identities. For Elissar, growing up in a German high school created a distance from her heritage. Despite a childhood surrounded by Lebanese culture, she recalls, “Covid gave us all a lot of time to think, and I started reflecting on how my classmates made me feel like my culture was shameful or not as valuable as theirs.”

Reconnecting with her roots became a deliberate process, one fueled by music, film, and an embrace of the nostalgia and pride that many diasporic communities share. The Heimweh collection was her way of reclaiming that pride. “It was a representation of the process I had to go through to reach a point where I no longer felt ashamed,” she explains, a celebration of her Lebanese, Palestinian, and Arab heritage.

The one-shoulder Zeitoun Dress was the first piece Elissar created for the Heimweh Collection.

Elissar’s approach is daringly personal. Her clothing isn’t a subtle nod to her heritage but a bold declaration of identity. By pasting photographs of Lebanon directly onto her designs, she doesn’t just reference her homeland—she carries it, making her pride visible to the world. “This is what I needed to see when I was young,” she says.

Her second collection, LIRAAA, is equally reflective of her connection to Lebanon. This series features dresses and two-piece sets in green, purple, and pink lycra, printed with the image of a 1,000 Lebanese lira note. “I remember before the inflation when I could buy anything I wanted with a 1,000 lira note,” she shares. For Elissar, the collection is a tribute to a currency that once felt boundless in value.

The green LIRAAA Dress with a cut-out back and high slit, printed with the 1,000 Lebanese Lira bill.

In many ways, her work is about preservation. By immortalizing elements of her homeland on fabric, she gives these symbols a new kind of worth, independent of external validation. It’s a deeply personal, yet universally resonant act of cultural storytelling.

While she plans to create designs inspired by her Palestinian heritage in the future, Elissar is waiting for the right moment. “I want the approach to feel fitting for a place I’ve not yet seen,” she says. Until then, her work remains a powerful reflection of her diasporic identity, stitched together with memory, pride, and love.

The purple LIRAAA skirt and top, also available in pink.