Ivory Coast-born, Lebanese designer Rym Beydoun’s label Super Yaya is all about cultural identity. For her AW18 collection, Beydoun returned to her Lebanese roots, shooting a lookbook at Baalbak’s iconic Palmyra Hotel – once the favoured retreat of poet, artist, and filmmaker Jean Cocteau.

“I think it brought a new dimension to the brand,” Beydoun says of shooting in Lebanon, “some kind of conciliation in the cultural duality we’ve been trying to portray since the beginning.” With photography by Esther Theaker, bright green and yellow walls juxtapose the bold reds and pastel pinks of Super Yaya’s collection, while impromptu sets are comprised of carved wooden furniture.

The overall aesthetic plays upon the bright hues and patterned fabrics of the designer’s heritage – which is appropriate, for clothes intended to explore themes of cultural inheritance, nationalism, belonging, migration, timelessness. All of these are ideas which Beydoun finds it important to focus on, given it feels “as if everything is sort of blending nowadays.”

More candid-style photographs from the lookbook display mixed abstract and nature-derived prints and textures, which reflect the Super Yaya vision to incorporate more difficult-to-come-by African fabrics into its designs. “We have been trying to make our own ‘African fabrics’ as choice is limited on the market,” Beydoun explains. “When it comes to wax or bazin the industry often offers new prints or colours but the variation is a decorative one as the base remains of the same woven cotton. We intend to offer alternatives so the texture and nature of the fabric changes without becoming unfamiliar.”

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