CSB SCHOOL OF DESIGN is a tuition-free school for fashion design with an intensive 3 year program.
The versatile environment supports the development of design thinking and design practice through a robust, tightly knit, network of students, teachers, and residents.
Through critical, dialogical, and experiential approaches to design learning, and an extensive alumni support system, the CSB-SD community tasks itself in engineering thriving iterations of the designer and citizen of the future.
It provides designers/citizens with the tools to manoeuvre complex socio-political conditions while building meaningful, enduring practices.
We are delighted to have taken part in Egypt Fashion Week 2023! Creative Space Beirut exhibited the work of selected alumni students, as well as some selected students from the 2022 graduating class final collection.
Sarah Hermez, Co-founder of Creative Space Beirut, also participated in a panel titled ‘The Vital Role of Councils and Support Systems’ where she discussed the importance of free education with some of the international fashion industry’s most important players, including Burak Cakmak, CEO Saudi Fashion Commission, Susan Sabet, Egyptian Fashion & Design Council, Omoyemi Akerele, Lagos Fashion Week.
We were also honored to listen to an inspiring talk by Imran Amed, Editor in Chief of The Business of Fashion.
Date: 12-15 May 2023
2022 EXHIBITION
Date: Dec 20th 2022 - Jan 4th 2023
Participants: 2nd year 3rd year + alumni
An exhibition held at CSB studio in Monot Street to launch the thesis collections of CSB-SD’s 2022 graduating class, the work of our current students and selected alumni collections.
The CSB-SD Fashion Films are part of a series that showcase the work of CSB-SD’s 2022 graduating class and selected alumni, these short fashion films were produced to celebrate creativity, perseverance, and community. So much love to the amazing team that brought it all together.
Date: Dec 2022
Participants: 3rd year
Both design institutions wandering on roads less traveled, Kilometre Paris and Creative Space Beirut’s collaboration came to life off the beaten track. Creative Space Beirut School of Design (csb-sd) hackers were provided with items from Kilometre Paris collections, each marked with embroidered or printed details from settings across the globe and tasked with breathing new life into them.
Kilometre Paris items were up-cycled into new pieces, mixing deadstock fabric from csb and adding a personal touch of inspiration. The project was led by csb-sd alumni Amir Al Kasm.
On june 9, a Beirut - Paris block party, held at rue du Vertbois, showcasing the results of the exciting upcycling collaboration took place. The event also included book signings of lebanese artists Diane Mazloum, Lamia Ziadé, Zeina Abirached, Gilbert Hage and bites by Eats Thymes. The items were showcased and sold.
Date: 2022
CSB-SD students were grateful to receive five intensive workshops at Bokja’s inspiring atelier. The studio crafts unique furniture and wearables using embroidery and textile. With a diverse team of talented artisans, it seeks to preserve a local craft tradition and redefine it in a contemporary voice. Abu Yusif, Bokja’s deeply knowledgeable head embroiderer, spent hours with the students teaching them how to navigate the impressive, more than 150 year old, embroidery machine and introducing them to its various intricate possibilities and embroidery techniques.
The students are now translating what they’ve learned onto their designs at school using our very own machine, incorporating these new techniques into their final collections!
As part of the production department that grew over the pandemic and in an effort to support the Lebanese and refugee communities through ethical production, PwC collaborated with Creative Space Beirut to produce 17,550 custom-made non-medical masks that comply with WHO guidelines, to be distributed across PwC’s global offices. The production of these masks engaged CSB’s team, students and alumni, as well as tailors from marginalized communities.
FTA x CSB-SD
One must as surely wear a face-mask these days, as they would wear clothes. With the inevitability of a shoe, and the washing cycle of a pair of underwear- this newly essential accessory has shifted from a surgical precaution to an intimate, daily prosthetic. How does one address this facade, which has virtually replaced the lower half of the human face in public settings? How does one turn this filter into a crown?
Fashion trust arabia and creative space beirut school of design came together to address this question. They devised a competition for csb students to be critical and imaginative about face-mask design, while maintaining extreme reverence to clinical precautions. This yielded a driven collective study on functional aesthetics.
CSB PUBLIC WORKS
In response to the rise of COVID-19 and the shortage of Personal Protective Equipment for medical staff, we converted our facilities into a 100% safe working space to produce PPE. The process will see the distribution of over 4,500 items to hospitals in need, free of charge. Supported by UNICEF Lebanon, the project provides income to 17 individuals - including students and alumni from Creative Space Beirut School of Design.
THESIS COLLECTION
This collection explores the challenges that face personal individuation, such as societal expectations and social media. The collection highlights how social media has led to a distorted sense of reality, and created an unhealthy obsession in rising generations.