I met
Right back then, Helou was using his platform in fashion to shine a light on the struggles his generation is up against – the crisis of waste in a country where rubbish isn’t collected, and their resistance against a corrupt and negligent government and divisive sectarianism. “Lebanese society needs to recognise the critical importance of civil unity,” he stated in a lookbook. A year on, he won first prize in the
On August 4, the blast in Beirut wrecked Helou’s atelier and home and devastated the community of designers, couturiers and young creatives and the people who work for them in the fashion district close to the port. “At that moment I had to man up,” he says. “I started to call friends and check up on them.” After looking after his mother and sister, who work for him, he immediately stepped up to rally people together, methodically quantifying the cost of rebuilding 35 friends’ businesses. “I’m an activist. I immediately jump to solutions.”
The collective formed as United for Lebanon Creatives, to crowdfund relief internationally. “We did our homework. For transparency reasons, we needed to know exactly where the money is needed and who we are helping,” says Helou. This conversation on August 14 was relayed via an Instagram Live with Céline Semaan, the Lebanese executive director of the Slow Factory Foundation in New York, who had started the Super Fund for Beirut to send dollars directly to trusted people working on the ground in her home city. Helou can be seen on her Instagram page (
The donation portal to the Slow Factory Foundation’s five-year plan for reconstruction is on the
Photographs courtesy of
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