BAHRAIN'S premier luxury lifestyle magazine has a new hand at the helm in the shape of arts expert Lisa Ball-Lechgar.

Though still only 35, Lisa has combined arts and media across the Middle East for several years after first coming to Morocco as a young actress in 1991.

She travelled back to the country several times before returning full time to the UK where she became a sponsorship consultant for various arts based organisations securing funding for theatre companies and festivals and working on arts research and as a cultural adviser for organisations such as the World Bank and the European Commission.

Eventually Lisa was sent to Lebanon on a consultancy and fell in love with the country leaving her job in London to move to Beirut and take on a project for the European Cultural Foundation mapping the cultural sectors of Lebanon and Egypt with the aim of setting up a comprehensive directory of artists across the area from painters and sculptors to singers and actors.

In 2002 she entered the world of journalism proper going to work for Lebanon Opportunies, the Levantine country's leading business publication, where she undertook various research and investigations into areas such as the cement industry, telecommunications and economics.

And at the same time she was producing features for architecture and design magazine 360 and Lebanon's first women's lifestyle magazine Blink, both of which have a strong emphasis on contemporary living.

While in Beirut Lisa was also involved with Ashkal Alwan, the Lebanese Association of Plastic Arts, again working across the whole range of arts mediums helping to gain funding for artists and setting up and co-curating exhibitions across the world from London to Sao Paulo, Brazil.

In 2005 she relocated to Dubai to take the reins at a leading arts magazine and after almost three years in post she decided the time was right for a move to Bahrain and Al Hilal's Clientele magazine under editor-in-chief Ali Kashef Alghata.

Lisa's first task was to prepare the magazine for a shift from bi-monthly to monthly publication and now she has set her sights on greater things declaring: "I want Clientele to be the sort of magazine that you can take to any country in the world and it will sit happily on the shelves alongside the other top-class lifestyle magazines while at the same time retaining a distinctly Bahraini and Middle Eastern feel."

And the Bahrain and wider Middle Eastern version of luxury living is what this new Clientele is all about.

"The big question is 'what is luxury'?" said Lisa.

"Everyone has their own interpretation. Yes there are luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Dior but luxury living is about more than shopping in malls.

"It's about being well travelled, aspiring to and being able to appreciate the better things in life.

"It's also about where luxury is in the Middle East.

"There's a whole plethora of designers, artists, manufacturers and innovators here in Bahrain and in the wider GCC who are bringing their luxury ideas and styles to a wider audience.

"Clientele is about bringing these new ideas to our readers who are broad-minded, educated and sophisticated enough to embrace this form of Middle Eastern luxury.

"For example Zaha Hadid, the British Iraqi who designed the Opera House Dubai, is now coming up with ideas for furniture and people in this part of the world are now commissioning designers from this region to create pieces that speak about them and their lives in the Middle East.

"This is a kind of luxury that has its origins grounded in the traditions and history of the Middle East and indeed Bahrain.

"In fact I believe Bahrain to be the most creative nation in the GCC so it is logical that it should be leading the way in terms of design and inspiration for luxury."

The latest issue of Clientele magazine is available in all good book shops and to home subscribers. For more details go to www.Clientele-Magazine.com