How far, asks Yasmine Fathi, to your dream wedding dress? Abroad rules as maidens assess and obsess. No doubt the big night is worth every moment of your attention for months in advance. And of all the details it involves, the bridal gown -- virginal, white but still infinitely various, enough to render the choice of it positively exhausting -- well, it'll take up a good portion of all that planning. "My dress more than anything will make me feel like a bride." To-be-married (or shall we say, to-have-her-wedding) Sherine Ghoneim, a saleswoman, looked down, blushing. As it turns out in the last two decades getting the right piece of garb has tended to involve crossing countries, nay continents. George Shehada, one disgruntled Lebanese designer, says Arab women suffer from the khawaga complex: foreign is better by default; many of them, he says with sartorial authority, don't even know a beautiful dress when they see one. Others travel just to be different, adds Neamat Diab, a designer at Melodies, a local high-end house: they have the money, they want to stand out. Yet Rania Zyad, a secretary who went Italian, sums up the counter-argument: "Good taste, good quality, and reasonable prices." Egyptian dresses make you look like a Barbie doll, she adds for good measure. Ah well: Diab claims there are dozens of models, infinitely modifiable. But how biased is Diab? For her part Lina Sami went Thai, of all things. "Thailand is well known for its amazing tailors, and its beautiful lace. Having my dress tailored allowed me to control cost," she winks knowingly, "as I could buy affordable fabric and beads". Maha El-Gammal, a teacher, was rather less exotic with Dubai: "I couldn't find anything comparable for the same price." Marwa Imam, an engineer, agreed: "Dresses are just too expensive here. I'm not going to spend half of my wedding budget on a dress now, am I?" Quite right -- except Shehada, who has been in Egypt for seven years, finds this reasoning somewhat strange. Add the air fare and hotel bill and see what you get now, he challenges. Besides, cost is as modifiable as Diab's designs -- something no woman should be embarrassed to address with her very own designer, he leans over. "Then again," Shehada takes one coy step aside, "no woman should have to give excuses. It's her dress, so if she's happy then that's all that matters." He actually smiles. Gone are the days when Paris and Milan were the prime destinations for the shopping expedition of a lifetime, as Diab points out. The EU and the euro drove the maidens elsewhere, notably to Beirut, where you can pay in US dollars and where, more seriously, Arab tastes -- less bland than those of Europe -- are better accommodated: "I was in Greece before my wedding -- all the dresses looked plain, traditional and boring, extremely boring." Lebanon is the cultural bridge, she elaborated, land of the bridal philosopher's stone. And philosopher's stone it is, almost, judging by the complaints of designers. Egyptian women want everything in the same dress, Shehada picked up again, which can make a dress look bizarre. But with clients young enough to come in jeans and trainers, it is up to a patient designer to listen and take charge -- if he is sufficiently trusted. "Exactly," Nadia El Sheikh, a designer with outlets in Cairo and Alexandria, bangs on the table. A local designer is more sensitive to cultural differences, she goes to great lengths to explain: "If a veiled woman wants a revealing dress -- well, it can be adjusted to conceal." And experience has taught Egyptian designers to employ world fashion in the service of local market needs, the so-called Spanish hijab being the prime example. But are local designers professional enough? "I started working on my dress eight months before the wedding night," says Heba Eissa, a shop owner. Nail biting abounded. "I even had to lie to the woman about the date -- otherwise I would never have had it on time. Give me three to five weeks, says Diab, depending on the dress, and I will deliver -- no worries. For Melodies, Diab insists, punctuality is the name of the game -- a proud interval of self-praise, this, during which she is particularly harsh on the local craftsmen, who sew in the beads, among other finishing touches: "They don't love their work." The aforementioned houses may be too expensive for many a nubile beauty, but don't you despair. Designers like Ashraf Rashed cater to the lower middle class, and he can make an LE20,000 dress for only LE4,000, he says. The "bridal suit" is an increasingly popular budget option: it has a long tail and a very short front, worn with trousers underneath, lest any part of that invaluable flesh should be seen by any other than the chosen one. And those who can't even afford Rashed -- well, they can rent. For LE350-1,750, Samara, a wedding dress rent store owner, is even willing to design a brand new specimen so long as it is guaranteed to prove popular. The bride selects, gets two fitting sessions, takes the dress -- and returns it the next morning. And Samara's dresses are of such quality they can be worn 10 to 15 times, Samara says. Not such a tragically bad choice, after all. With such variety, nay creativity, all that the Egyptian wedding dress scene is really missing is media attention. So claims Nahed Nada, at least, wife of designer Mohamed Nada and manager of his outlet. "There is no awareness," she sighs. "Women just don't know that we can beat Europe." A sullen expression heralds the change of tone, here. "Any day." And Shehada, more quietly, agreed. Egypt has the makings of a great dress-making country: great cotton, great linen, great handiwork. "It could be even better than Beirut." No pressure should be exerted, but Shehada has a word of advice: "People say it's a one-night dress. Actually it's a once-in-a-lifetime dress. Even if there are no more than 20 guests at the wedding, the pictures and the memories will always be there. So," he says, gesturing even more coyly than before, a broad smile straining his face, "make sure it's perfect."
