Spring 2020 Haute Couture: Zuhair Murad's Egyptian Collection

For his Spring–Summer 2020 haute couture collection, Zuhair Murad revisited the splendor of ancient Egypt, distilling its mythology and regal iconography into a modern, red-carpet vocabulary. The Lebanese designer has long been drawn to civilizations where ornamentation carries symbolic weight, and here he channelled that fascination into silhouettes that felt both ceremonial and seductive.

Collars gleamed like contemporary breastplates, meticulously jewelled to echo the armour of Egyptian queens. Sheath gowns—the collection’s through line—unfurled with Murad’s signature precision: narrow, elongated, and held by slender straps knotted at the shoulders, their waists sharply defined to heighten the statuesque effect.

As an homage to the Sun God, evening pieces arrived crowned with capes, their surfaces alive with incandescent gilding and crystalwork that lent a sensual yet architectural presence. Sunburst pleats appeared in vermilion or deepest black, trailing into regal trains and punctuated by sculpted cutouts at the chest and back.

Embroideries traced hieroglyphs and divine figures—the ibis, Horus—woven into the gowns like talismans. The result was a collection that basked in the radiance of an ancient world while reminding us how naturally Murad translates historical pageantry into contemporary glamour.