lilo

Leen Mattar, a Palestinian fashion designer, founded her brand LILO in 2022, a high-end Ateliér that injects excitement and inclusivity into fashion.

In 2019 Leen relocated to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, an emerging fashion city where culture meets couture. Living and breathing fashion was her dream, but fashion design was not recognized as a suitable career path for Leen. Her culture required a more traditional career path to be acceptable, This was not Leen’s vision for herself in life, her heart was for fashion. Her whole life, always living in her own headspace, in her own bubble “LILO”. Leen knew she had it inside to become a designer for a long time but was too afraid to let it out, waiting for the right time to create such unusual and difficult pieces that can be appreciated in the fashion industry.

Her journey started in Milano, where she took a fashion design course at the prestigious Istituto Di Burgo Milano, the fashion capital of Italy. Studying in Milan increased her knowledge and practical skills as a designer, from sketching, developing new illustration techniques, and experimenting with fabric technology to creating patterns, immersing her ideations into reality. This is when Leen began to evolve her vision for LILO, trying different piping techniques as an illusion to create something different in the industry. her signature piping structures that are now adored and are the unique features appreciated in her pieces. She started to create art through fashion expressions that echoed her personality.