This first free fashion design school in Beirut needs your help. Creative Space Beirut, a free and non-profit fashion institute, launched a crowdfunding campaign on IndieGoGo to raise $25,000 in its path to self-sustainability. So far, the campaign has raised $4,895.
All funds will be invested in providing students with equipment, material and transportation costs, partially cover salaries and accommodate international visiting faculty.
Launched in 2011 by Lebanese Parsons alumnus and fashion designer Sarah Hermez and Parsons professor Caroline Simonelli, CSB offers a three-year program in fashion design. The school’s mission was founded on merging social justice and fashion design by offering equal opportunity to passionate students coming from all over Lebanon and its Palestinian refugee camps.
A project like CSB, which stresses access to education, especially fashion education (often seen as an elitist trade), as a right for all, breaks the barriers of social class and privilege, a pressing subject in private institutions across Lebanon whose students can’t afford tuition and faculty aren’t reaping benefits promised to them.
CSB’s students’ access to a holistic curriculum that combines practical and theoretical courses encourages them to think creatively and have problem-solving skills while working on a robust portfolio. The program draws a fashion-savvy crowd yearly with its diverse student exhibitions, which stands as the school’s main fundraiser. Student creations presented at the exhibition are often sold, with the profits invested back into the school and its students.
The crowdfunding campaign ends on July 19.