her fashion journey with a bridal collection in New York

On Wednesday, Acra opened her first franchise boutique in downtown Beirut — more than a decade after launching her fashion journey with a bridal collection in New York.

"I've always been proud to be of Lebanese origin and today I'm even prouder," Acra said as she stood smiling amid elaborate evening gowns in the gleaming two-story boutique.

"I do not know anything about what is happening ... I'm just excited about the fashion part of Beirut and that's all I know," she said.

A tiny Arab country of 4 million people along the Mediterranean Sea, Lebanon has produced an impressive crop of designers. They include Elie Saab and Zuhair Murad, whose work is regularly featured at celebrity events such as the Oscars and the Golden Globes.

The Lebanese have a reputation for being among the most fashion-conscious people in the Middle East — and are extremely liberal about the amount of skin they show.

Downtown Beirut, an area rebuilt over the past two decades from civil war destruction and the place where Acra opened her boutique, is dotted with high-end luxury boutiques such as Gucci, Dior, Vivienne Westwood and Prada.

Like many Lebanese, Acra left Lebanon with her family at the height of the civil war in 1983. But she said she first got her sense of fashion from living in Beirut.

a good watch is much more than a time piece

Even in this age of Blackberrys, iPads, and smart phones, all replete with the exact time, a good watch is much more than a time piece, it's the face you look at most frequently throughout the course of the day, it's the accessory that means the most to you, it's the marvellous piece of miniscule mechanics that accompanies you everywhere you go.

For some it's an investment (good watches appreciate in value), for some it's a family heirloom (I still have the watch my grandfather gave to my father), and for some it's a way to show off.

But for everyone who falls in love with a watch, a watch is the one item that goes everywhere with you, so that even in that lonely motel room on a business trip, or sitting as I am right now stranded in an airport, you can look at your watch and feel a sense of comfort. A watch is your best mechanical friend, wherever you go.

Even so, he admits: "Buying a Rolex isn't about knowing the time." It's bound up with one of the historical reasons for carrying a watch - status.

At the beginning of the 20th Century the fashion was for pocket watches, says Jonathan Scatchard, author of Miller's guide to wristwatches.

"It was a bit of a rite of passage; a real man had a chain with a watch hanging from it," he says. During World War I, the practicalities of trench warfare led soldiers to attach them to the wrist with leather straps.

But it was not until improved technology, such as the self-winding mechanism, allowed for smaller, more convenient pieces, that they became the norm.

"Even in the late 1920s it could be thought of as a little bit effeminate if a man wore a wristwatch," says Mr Scatchard, who runs a website dedicated to another vintage status brand, Heuer.

Traditional wristwatches have seen off the threat of technology before - when consumers in the 1980s enjoyed an intense if short interest in the Japanese-pioneered digital watches - and will do again, he says.

"The fascination is with something made by hand that has a tick; almost like a heartbeat," he says.

"We all have mobile phones but they are out of date in two years and you never get attached to them."

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