Fashion meets social activism on charity runway

Trash pickup never looked so sexy. Teetering on black platforms and dressed in a skin-tight green jumpsuit modeled after the iconic uniforms worn by Sukleen waste management’s street cleaners, a model at a charity fashion show flung a plastic bag over her shoulder with a message written to Lebanese. It loosely translated to: “There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

A group of student activists from the American University of Beirut hosted the “Fashion Meets Lezem” event in a bare concrete ballroom of the old St. Georges Hotel Sunday night. The event aimed at cleaning up Lebanon with more than cheeky smocks, as it wove some of the most pressing issues facing Lebanese society into a performance-like fashion show highlighting some the country’s well-known emerging designers.

Lezem, a group of some 25 young people, organized Sunday’s event with the help of high-profile sponsors like Nokia and Elle Arabia magazine. Selma Zaki founded Lezem as a university student organization in 2011 and aimed to galvanize young people to become active stakeholders in Lebanon’s future. On the agenda Sunday night was a laundry list of social, environmental and political causes: pollution, racism against migrant workers, sectarianism, poor public utilities and domestic violence.

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Fashion meets social activism on charity runway