Nour Arida Gives Us An Unfiltered Look Into Her Life in The Limelight, Motherhood and Building Boundaries

The Lebanese model locks in her opinions on her overnight success, living in the limelight, and raising an inadvertent influencer

She could be my sunny, beautiful best friend. Scratch that: I came away from our interview thinking Nour Arida was a close friend. One that leaves our conversation to pick up her seven-year-old daughter, but is equally at ease gracing red carpets and being the spokesperson for international campaigns beamed to her almost 11 million followers. And that, in a nutshell, encapsulates the inherent draw of the Paris-based, Lebanese model, mother and personality – she is at once relatable, and yet aspirational. Fresh-faced, without an ounce of make-up, you identify with her as she signs off needing to do a school run, yet when you see her smouldering on set in Lebanese designers, you realise she has that extra sprinkling of star power that takes her to the next level. And, thanks to the magic of social media, I feel like I know her intimately – a notion she firmly corrects me about during our fascinating conversation.

BIG AMBITIONS

Nour’s career trajectory has more in common with a fairy tale – complete with someone administering the requisite fairy dust – than anything else. Immersed in the Middle Eastern fashion scene as head buyer overseeing more than 150 brands for a Beirut-based retail store aged 23, she had no aspirations to be famous; “I loved my job. I thought that I would do this all my life – that’s what you think when you have the perfect dream job,” she recalls.

But fate – and her husband George Badawi – had other plans. “George is a visionary,” Nour tells us, explaining how her other half-turned-manager had tapped her potential early when they first started dating. “When social media started, no one was really on it, except for people like Chiara Ferragni in Italy. It was still very new. I was against all this social stuff. It wasn’t my thing. I was very corporate, working in fashion, but on the other side of the business. So George was like, ‘Let’s do an Instagram account’. I said no at first, but eventually I started posting random pictures. I had 300 followers – just my closest friends and friends from school.”

Success literally came overnight eight years ago. “When we got married, one of my pictures from the wedding went viral. We still don’t know how. A wedding page in Australia reposted it. And I woke up the next day with 15,000 followers. I don’t know how they knew it was me. It’s crazy how it happened. And then I had 50,000 followers…” Nour remembers, still seemingly shocked by how events unfolded.

“George said ‘Let’s do something about it’. He had this vision. He told me, ‘I know we can monetise this’. And I was looking at him like he was talking Chinese. It was still very new to me. And he walked me through it,’” she tells us. “He had the strategy. He had everything planned in his head. He was in finance at the time but he always loved the art scene. So he knew he wanted to get out. For him this made perfect sense; me being present on social media and him having this vision. So everything came together. And then a year later, we signed our first deal with Ray Ban, and then it’s like a domino effect, things started to come naturally.”

CONFRONTING STEREOTYPES

It would be easy to typecast the 33-year-old as just another pretty face, yet at every turn she wrong-foots you as you try to pigeon-hole her. Underestimate her at your peril. She has strong opinions and isn’t afraid to express them. Case in point, indulging in retail therapy: “I hate shopping,” she laughs when I prod her to think of something that would surprise her fans. “You would think that someone like me would have this huge walk-in closet with my shoes and clothes. Right? All of the models and influencers seem to have the same pair of shoes in 15 colours. I don’t. I have a normal closet. I like to buy smart. I don’t hoard. I have three or four pairs of Levi’s jeans that I wear all the time, basic T-shirts. When I want to spend money on something I buy a nice coat or blazer. Brands I like a lot are Celine, Saint Laurent. These are the brands that fit my DNA. I go to & Other Stories, I buy from everywhere.”

She warms to the theme, musing that people have misplaced ideas as to how those in the public eye live their lives. “I think if they see me on my day-to-day life, I’m a very normal person,” she insists. She adds, “People have this misconception that people on Instagram live a different life. Even at home it’s never about fame, it’s a normal job.”

NOT JUST A PRETTY FACE

In a world where cancel culture is prevalent, it is often easier not to wade into weighty topics with personal opinions. But Nour isn’t going to stay silent, determined to use her platform to give a microphone to causes she feels strongly about. A quick glance at her Instagram account sees her motto emblazoned at the top: “Defender of women’s rights and bodies”, while her page shows that she is putting the spotlight on causes, showcasing the use of online tools to tweak images, putting together Reels to celebrate International Women’s Day, as well as demystifying the need for psychologists.

Despite being at the top of her profession, she is under no illusions about what drives her. “I don’t do this to be famous. On the contrary. Some girls want to be on social media because their dream is to become famous. It’s not that for me, it’s a job. My happiness comes from using my voice. When I get that huge contract, everyone’s like, ‘Are you excited?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, okay. It’s nice, but I don’t feel content’. If you ask me, ‘Where do you see yourself in 10 years?’ I’ll tell you, maybe opening up an NGO or working with women, being in politics, using my voice to make a change. That’s what counts. That’s what matters. At the end of the day, nothing else. We’ve seen women evolve so much in the region. But I feel there’s still a huge job to achieve. Women are now more independent, but not all women.”

ILLUSIONS VERSUS REAL LIFE

“Social media is like a facade. I don’t fall into this trap,” Nour replies without hesitating when pressed as to which online personalities she emulates or admires. “You know, I’ve never seen a girl and said, ‘Oh my God, I want to be like her.’ Never happened. I look up to people like my grandma, my mum, how resilient they are, and my dad – but not those on social media.”

What about when it comes to career strategy? “Negin Mirsalehi was able to manage her business but didn’t fall into the trap of social media. She has a multi-million dollar company now with her hair products, but at the same time, she’s so down to earth. The fame didn’t get to her head. You feel like she’s the same person.”

The conundrum of what to post and what to keep private also comes up when discussing her daughter Ayla, who has her own fan base since she’s such a regular part of her mother’s posts. Nour comes across as both philosophical about the dilemma she faces, yet deeply protective. It’s a tricky tightrope to navigate as the Lebanese model’s very first posts showcased her pregnancy – “I was up 28 kilos during my pregnancy. I was posting inspiration pictures in outfits. So people followed me throughout my pregnancy, and then when Ayla was born, so that’s why they’re attached to me, because we started off from zero together” – so her followers feel deeply invested in the little girl’s upbringing.

DRAWING THE LINE

She admits there are difficult instances and she constantly gets asked about ‘sharenting’. Does she have any qualms about her choices? “I always think about that,” she admits honestly. How does she address critics? “She is part of my life. If I put Ayla to the side, when she grows up, she’ll ask: ‘Why didn’t you include me?’ I can’t predict the effect that social media is going to have on her.”

Nour makes a valid point, stating that others have similar quandaries. “I see my friends, they all have children and their kids are on social media more than Ayla is. They have access to YouTube or to Instagram and they’re everywhere.” Speaking as a parent, and as someone in the public eye, Nour insists: “I know how to set limits. People think they know it all but they know what I let them see of Ayla. I show them what I want them to see – they don’t have access to our private side. Even on stories, I never show everything. I have a very big barrier between me and my community. So yeah, she’s on social media, but she’s not actually on social media. I control it, it’s not the other way around. In the Arab world, there’s the evil eye – people ask if I am worried about that – but I tell them what about the love that she has from this community? I’m sure it’s stronger than the hate or the negative comments. I try to think positively.”

She’s no ingénue, and doesn’t try to brush challenges aside. Is Ayla, who often speaks about weighty subjects like mental health and bullying on her videos, aware she’s being beamed to others’ phones? “I think she is because people stop us on the street even here in Paris – people stop her specifically, sometimes not me. They’re like, ‘Ayla, we love you!’ And she has asked me, ‘Why are people stopping us?’ I never use the word ‘famous’ or ‘you’re a star’ – I don’t even think like that. I tell her, ‘because people love you. People like how genuine you are. People love how you shared something. You helped a lot of little girls and boys. So I try to explain it in a positive way, as she’s a child.”

MOVING FORWARD

The fact that she stepped onto the world stage and signed up to Elite Paris when she was in her 20s, worked in Nour’s favour as she wasn’t as impressionable or easy to manipulate. In fact, she jokes that she never thought she’d make it in front of the camera as aspiring catwalk queens usually start their careers at 14 – and she was nearly 30 when she made it onto their books. “They saw something in me that I didn’t know I had,” she says modestly, recalling that the team felt her looks reminded them of Laetitia Casta, “But for me, it was out of my reach.”

It seems in many ways Nour’s journey takes her on unplanned paths, but not all her choices have been serendipitous. She is visibly moved when she talks of Lebanon; “If you had asked me five years ago, I would have told you I am never moving. And then after the explosion, George looked at me and he told me, ‘We almost lost our daughter. Do you really want to stay here?’ I felt this guilt, this responsibility.”

They’d had a close call, and that was the push the family needed to relocate to France. “We were home and the glass and everything exploded in our faces. But thank God nothing happened – we were safe. But we were at risk, and for me putting a seven-year-old girl at risk because of politicians and corruption is not something I wanted to do, so that’s when we decided to move to Paris. We’ve been here for two years now.”

Keeping their own culture alive via small gestures, from speaking in Arabic to cooking native dishes, and making regular visits back to Beirut ensures the family stay connected to their roots. “She knows how much I love Lebanon. You can like swim and look at the mountains or you’ll be skiing and see the sea. The scenery, the food, the hospitality, people being so nice for no reason at all.” And as for the future, Nour is adamant: “I don’t imagine myself growing old here. I know that one day, we’ll go back. I’ve travelled a lot, I’ve seen a lot and for me Lebanon remains the prettiest country in the world. So I hope one day we’ll be able to go back.”

Photography: Fouad Tadros. Styling: Anna Castan.

Editor in Chief: Olivia Phillips. Art Director: Oscar Yáñez. Hair: Jean-Luc Amarin. Make-Up: Maina Miltza. Nails: Cecilia Abbas. Executive Producer: Jean-Marc Mondelet. Senior Producer: Steff Hawker. Lighting Assistant: Faycal Bouhassoum. Stylist’s Assistants: Juliana Moreira and Imogene Legrand

From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s July/August 2023 issue.