Inside Creative Space Beirut: The Fashion School Redefining Who Gets To Belong In The Industry

It was 26 February 2023. My co-director, Ramzi Hibri, and I had set out from Beirut early that morning, driving into the Chouf Mountains in the heart of Mount Lebanon to visit the home village of design student Jihan Azzam. She’s one of many young creatives whose lives have been transformed by Creative Space Beirut (CSB) – a remarkable nonprofit fashion school in central Beirut redefining who gets to belong in the industry.

In less than an hour, the city’s energy faded behind us, replaced by a landscape blanketed in snow and framed by towering cedrus libani trees. Everything felt still – except for the distant sound of children playing on the slopes. Sitting on the porch of her grandmother’s traditional Druze home, we pressed ‘record’ and Jihan, with steady resolve, began to share her journey – one marked by leaving behind everything familiar in pursuit of a dream: Creative Space. That pursuit – a bold determination to carve out a different future – was, we soon realised, the heartbeat of this story; a quiet revolution powered by hope, accessibility and design.

What brought me to Beirut — and more importantly, to students like Jihan? In September 2022, as I entered my final year of BA Fashion Journalism at Central Saint Martins, I started planning my Final Major Project. From the outset, I knew I didn’t want to stay in the comfort zone of the industry I’d spent the past few years studying. I was after a story that hadn’t been told a hundred times over. Fashion, as I knew it, revolved around the same four cities: New York, Milan, London and Paris. It’s where headlines are made, graduate collections get noticed and photographers are discovered. But I didn’t feel I had anything new to say in that orbit. So, I set out to find a different story – one outside the usual fashion capitals, with something real at stake. 

Beirut had always been a city I’d wanted to visit. My family had lived there, and I’d grown up hearing about its incredible music, fashion, art and, of course, the food. But by the time I started planning this project, I was thinking about more than just its cultural draw. I was thinking about the devastating impact of the Port of Beirut Blast in August 2020 – how it had shaken the city, and what had happened to its creative industries in the aftermath. At the time, the explosion dominated global headlines. The horrifying video of the blast – a chemical container erupting on the coastline – went viral immediately. But two years later, Beirut had slipped from the news cycle, with the brutal reality of being overshadowed by other global disasters. No one seemed to be asking how the city was rebuilding – or what that recovery looked like for its once-thriving creative scene.

Discovering Creative Space

So, I started researching. One of the first pages I came across on Google was the website for a fashion school that provided “free fashion design education and career support to talented youth from vulnerable backgrounds across Lebanon”. As I continued to scroll, it was clear that this was more than a fashion school; it was a platform for empowerment and creative expression.

I reached out to the founder, Sarah Hermez. Over the phone, she spoke about CSB’s journey with conviction and raw honesty, beginning with its founding in 2011. Sarah’s search for students started by knocking on doors and visiting Lebanon’s refugee camps, looking for young people who were self-taught but might not have believed there was a way to develop their talent further. Her mission was to give them that chance – to show them they could build something for themselves from what they love. “Because everybody deserves that,” she says.

She went on to describe how the school had faced repeated setbacks – each time forcing them to rebuild from the ground up. The most recent came after the Beirut blast, when they were left with no support and no answers as to what happened from the government. “We were left completely alone,” she said. “We still don’t have any central electricity, none of the street lamps work, so we are in total darkness a lot of the time.”

After that conversation, I was deeply inspired by Sarah’s commitment to creating a completely free space for people to express their creativity and her dedication to providing young people hope through opportunity. I knew I wanted to help amplify her mission – and film felt like the right medium to do it. Three months (and multiple Zoom calls) later, I was on a plane to Lebanon, with just four weeks to capture everything we needed. Naturally, I was nervous. I was acutely aware that I was an outsider – a British girl the students had never met, suddenly showing up and asking them to sit in front of a camera and open up about their lives, almost immediately.

To help bridge that gap, Sarah introduced me to her close friend Ramzi – an incredibly talented Lebanese filmmaker. Not only did Ramzi understand the cultural and historical nuances I couldn’t grasp as an outsider, he had a deep, personal connection to the school – it had become a central hub for creatives across Beirut to gather, reconnect and feel inspired to create again after the blast. Ramzi had spent a great deal of time there. I was instantly captivated by his passion for the project, and he agreed to co-direct the film with me. Ramzi also took on the role of director of photography, while I produced.

Over the next four weeks, we travelled across Lebanon, through the winding streets of historic cities including Tripoli and Sidon and into the heart of the students’ hometowns. Each day brought us closer to the people whose lives had been transformed by this school. And what we found was a creative community as varied as it was driven: students and alumni from all backgrounds, bound by talent, ambition and a shared love for design.

A Creative Community

One of the school’s star pupils is Syrian designer Amir Al Kasm, who features in the film as an alumnus. When I first met Amir, we were in the car en route to a shoot. He was quieter than the other students but his steady eye contact and warm, thoughtful gaze hinted at a rich inner world – someone who, in time, would open up. He sat in the back seat between two other CSB alumni, and the conversation turned to their biggest fashion inspirations.

“Amir loves Alexander McQueen!” one of them said. I turned around and smiled. “Oh really? I actually used to work there.”

Instantly, his eyes lit up. He leaned forward, full of curiosity, and began asking questions. He spoke about how it was his dream to one day work for the house – a goal that felt entirely within reach, once you saw his work. Amir’s designs possess that same visceral, romantic drama that defined early McQueen: raw emotion sculpted into form. His creativity is singular and fearless, shaped by a personal history that is just as moving.

Later, he shared how it all began, with a Barbie doll he kept close for comfort after being forced to flee Syria in 2011. He would dress the Barbie with fabric scraps collected from his mother. That doll marked the quiet start of his journey into fashion and, since, then it has become something nothing short of transformative – like watching someone butterfly. It was through the belief and support of Sarah and the CSB team that this evolution was not only possible but powerfully realised.

The Changing Landscape

Since that trip to Lebanon, the world has shifted dramatically. The ongoing genocide in Gaza and the intermittent bombardment of Beirut have once again placed the safety of the school – and the future of its mission – under threat. Over the past two years, my phone calls with Sarah and the team have been accompanied by the unsettling hum of drones overhead; a constant reminder of the instability that shadows their everyday lives.

We made the decision to pause the film’s release, holding out hope that the conflict might cease and we may eventually be able to host the release event we had planned, where we would all come together for a screening together in London, followed by one back in Beirut.

During that time, we continued to refine the edit. Then, I was introduced to an immensely talented writer and director – Basma Khalifa. I told her about my film, which she was interested to watch, and to my delight, asked to come on as Executive Producer. “As someone from a politically and economically unstable country, Sudan, I have always been deeply moved by the power of creative expression in times of adversity,” she told me. “When I first encountered Creative Space Beirut, I felt an immediate connection. Seeing the students choose creativity as their form of resistance filled me with immense pride. What struck me most was how their work transcends borders, speaking to a universal experience of frustration, uncertainty and the desire for change.”

With the help of our amazing editors, Beirut-based Malek Hosni and London-based Jamie Robertson, we were determined to craft a version that would resonate as widely and deeply as possible. Because one thing had become painfully clear: the devastation of this war had brought an even greater urgency to the project. The story of Creative Space Beirut – the hope it fosters, the futures it’s shaping – needed to be heard more than ever.

Today, despite Lebanon’s ongoing instability, Creative Space Beirut continues to serve as a vital haven for young talent and a powerful model for what accessible, purpose-driven arts education can look like. And as a major milestone in its story – the school has been invited to take part in London’s Shubbak Festival, a leading platform celebrating contemporary art and culture from across the Arab world. Four final year students – Iftikhar Kanawati, Jihan Azzam, Mostafa Al Souss and Patile Tachjian – will have their designs showcased on The People’s Catwalk, a moment of well-deserved recognition and exposure in front of a new audience.

To represent the school, founder Sarah will also attend, marking a celebratory milestone for CSB – and so this felt like the perfect moment to release our film. After two years in the making, The Creative Space – which will be screened as part of Shubbak this Saturday 24 May (and released on Service95’s YouTube afterwards – watch this space) – is finally ready to be shared with the world: a project born from curiosity, shaped by collaboration and carried by the unwavering spirit of a creative community unlike any other.

By simply creating a platform for these young creatives to tell their stories, we witnessed a kind of hope that doesn’t just endure adversity, but transforms it into something powerful. When systems fail, it’s spaces like CSB that reveal just how radical, resilient and necessary creativity truly is.