By Oliver Holmes

BEIRUT Wed Feb 4, 2015 7:34pm EST

BEIRUT (Reuters) - It's in the refugee camps and orphanages of Lebanon that Creative Space Beirut, a fashion school, looks for emerging talent for its three-year program taught by top Lebanese and international designers.

Sarah Hermez, 28, founder and director of Creative Space, chooses ten underprivileged students from different backgrounds to join her school in the art district of east Beirut.

They hope to join the success story of Lebanon as the fashion center of the Middle East and home to designers making dresses worn by Hollywood stars on the red carpet.

U.S. singer Jennifer Lopez wore a silver dress by Zuhair Murad at the Golden Globes last month, attention-grabbing with a thigh-high slit. British actor Kate Beckinsale wore an eye-catching gray Elie Saab dress to the same event.

At Creative Space, students sketch ideas in books on large white tables, surrounded by tailor's dummies and spools of different colored thread.

Hermez co-founded the school with her New York-based former professor Caroline Simonelli and says it is for "people who are very talented, very passionate about design, but would never have had an opportunity to pursue design."

When she opened the school in 2011, she traveled around Lebanon, a small Mediterranean country, searching for talent in refugee camps, orphanages, poor neighborhoods and women's centers. Students then applied for a place. New students come in when slots open up.

Some students focus on evening wear but many make the school's ready-to-wear line, including trousers and kimonos. They sell for between $100 and $200 a piece, with high-end fabrics donated by designers that include Donna Karan.

All profits go back into the school, which also receives donations and partners with shops to raise funds.

Creative Space has only two graduates so far. One, a Palestinian refugee from Ain el-Helweh camp in southern Lebanon, is now doing work for a design house in Lebanon and teaching her skills to others for a charity.

Ahmad Amer, a 21-year-old from south Lebanon, started the program two months ago. He painted from an early age and wanted to study fashion but could not afford the fees.

"It would have stayed as a hobby and I would have worked on it on a personal level only," he said, showing his sketch book filled with drawings of women in veils.

"These three years will make a big difference in my life, I have a place to work in and I have material to use," he said.

Hermez, who graduated from the Parsons School of Fashion in New York, said that starting out with as little as her students used to be the norm in the fashion industry, and that design became a vocation for the elite only in the last decade.

"If you look back into any famous designer, most of them have come from backgrounds where they had to work. They had to work and build themselves up."

(Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

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By Joe Brock and Helen Nyambura-Mwaura

JOHANNESBURG Fri Feb 6, 2015 12:07pm EST

1 of 2. South African model Lulama Mlambo poses while wearing clothes made by Kisua.com, an online clothing retailer launched by Ghanaian entrepreneur Samuel Mensah, in Johannesburg, February 2, 2015.

Credit: Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - When Michelle Obama and Beyonce Knowles attended high-profile events in clothes made by African designers, it was a sure sign that the continent's vibrant style has arrived on the world stage.

The showcasing of clothes from home-grown African designers in stores in New York, London and Tokyo is a sign of a broader change of attitude towards a continent which is earning a brighter reputation beyond stories of war and disease.

It has proven difficult for Africa's home grown designers to break into the mainstream fashion market because the perception has often been that products from the world's poorest continent are of low quality or just not cool.

Global fashion designers like Yves Saint Laurent took inspiration from Africa decades ago and more recently brands like Burberry, Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior have embraced the continent's style and broadened its appeal.

But consumers now want products made by Africans, not replicas produced by Western clothing chains, according to Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu, who owns Ethiopian shoe company, soleRebels, which has a dozen stores from Singapore to Greece.

"The global consumer today is hyper-aware. They want authentic and innovative ideas delivered from the authors of those ideas," Bethlehem said.

"We have always had incredible design and production talent here, but it was invisible. That is changing."

In 2010, the first annual New York African Fashion Week gave home-grown designers the chance to showcase their work on the world stage.

Global celebrities have endorsed African designers including Nigerian label Maki-Oh, Ghana's Osei-Duro and South Africa-based retailer Kisua.com.

Nigerian lawyer-turned-designer Duro Olowu has become a well-known name in fashion circles and has a collection at U.S. department store J.C. Penney and his own boutique store in central London.

"It was a good thing to see international designers putting African fashion on the map," said Ghanaian entrepreneur Samuel Mensah, who quit his job as a fund manager to launch online clothes retailer Kisua.com.

"Now we're starting to see Africa taking ownership of its own cultural assets. African designers are being noticed. They are stocked in international stores."

CHALLENGES AT HOME

While attitudes abroad have changed the industry is also trying to meet latent demand for quality fashion among the growing middle-class at home.

"The change has been brought about by global developments, both economical change and a communication change," said Roger Gerards, creative director at Vlisco, one of the world's biggest producers of African fabric.

"People see other countries and other cultures more easily than 20 years ago because of social media," Gerards added.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the second fastest growing economic region in the world behind Asia and has a rapidly growing middle-class who have more access to world trends as mobile phones and the Internet reach tens of millions more people every year.

The industry has chosen to focus on middle-class consumers who value traditional manufacturing methods and local materials because it cannot compete with cheap mass-produced imports.

The lack of investment in infrastructure and a failure of African governments to agree favorable trade agreements with each other have seen imports continue to rise.

China has grown its share of Africa's clothing imports from 16 percent in 2001 to 55 percent in 2013, while intra-African trade has remained flat at around 10 percent of imports, according to International Trade Centre data.

Even companies that are showcasing African talent often have to rely on resources outside the continent. Vlisco is based in the Netherlands, while Kisua.com only gets half of its materials from within Africa.

"It is easier for me to serve a client in New York or London than in Lagos or Nairobi," said Mensah, who struggles with reliable warehousing and postal services in Africa.

(Editing by James Macharia and Elaine Hardcastle)

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