Glamour Night for Bosnia Migrants Presenting 'No Nation Fashion' Project

A migrant model takes to the catwalk inside the 19th century building City Hall in Sarajevo, Bosnia, Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021, during the presentation of a collection dubbed "No Nation Fashion", a migrant-made fashion brand project.  (AP photo)
A migrant model takes to the catwalk inside the 19th century building City Hall in Sarajevo, Bosnia, Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021, during the presentation of a collection dubbed "No Nation Fashion", a migrant-made fashion brand project. (AP photo)
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Glamour Night for Bosnia Migrants Presenting 'No Nation Fashion' Project

A migrant model takes to the catwalk inside the 19th century building City Hall in Sarajevo, Bosnia, Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021, during the presentation of a collection dubbed "No Nation Fashion", a migrant-made fashion brand project.  (AP photo)
A migrant model takes to the catwalk inside the 19th century building City Hall in Sarajevo, Bosnia, Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021, during the presentation of a collection dubbed "No Nation Fashion", a migrant-made fashion brand project. (AP photo)

For an evening, some migrants in Bosnia were able to escape the hardship of their everyday lives for the glamour of fashion world.

A fashion show featuring migrant models was held on Thursday evening in Bosnia’s capital, Sarajevo, presenting a brand created by migrants from reception centers in the Balkan country and a Bosnian designer.

The event held at the Sarajevo City Hall was also meant to mark International Migration Day this weekend, and promote integration of people who were forced to flee their homes to escape war, violence or poverty.

“It is really important to recognize that migrants have contributed so much to the world, and there are so many different paths of migration,” said Ingrid Macdonald, the UN resident coordinator in Bosnia, The Associated Press reported.

Macdonald hailed “those incredible people who have come here and are contributing to Bosnia-Herzegovina.”

Dubbed “No Nation Fashion,” the migrant-made fashion brand project started last June, through a sewing project for migrants at some of the reception centers, who were initially making reusable face masks in the pandemic.

Backed by international organizations in Bosnia and with the help of Bosnian designer Aleksandra Lovric, migrants started creating clothes and accessories “made by people on the move,” and meant for both themselves and the local community.

A mixture of cultures, an exchange of ideas and creativity of people from various parts of the world, the fashion brand has shown the power of inclusion and diversity, said Laura Lungarotti, of the International Organization for Migration in Bosnia.

Bosnia is home to about 4,000 people who remain stuck in the Balkan country while looking for ways to move toward Western Europe. The impoverished nation lies on the so-called Balkan route for migrants traveling from Turkey and Greece and through the region toward the European Union.

Migrants in Bosnia mostly try to cross to neighboring EU country Croatia, before heading on further west. Many migrants routinely face closed borders and have complained of pushbacks and violence at the hands of Croatian police.

Still scarred by its own trauma from a 1990s war, many Bosnians have shown sympathy for the migrants, even as the country struggled with the influx of thousands of people that needed to be accommodated.

Lovric said she wanted to do everything she could to help improve the lives for people in the camps.

“I wanted them to feel like normal human beings,” the designer said. “They are all on a tough road, carrying heavy emotions, and something good is always born out of such emotions.”

At the fashion show on Thursday, migrant models came out on the catwalk in designs meant to symbolize various stages of their journeys — the “nomadic” road away from home and the transit to new lives in new countries. The panel in the background read “We are strong,” and “We smile.”

Organizers said they plan to expand the project to more reception centers and establish cooperation with technical schools and universities in Bosnia.

“Working side by side, migrants and Bosnian designers have come together and created this fantastic piece of art and it shows really how much diversity, intercultural exchanges can be beneficial for the migrants and for the host society,” Lungarotti said.



Chili Paste Heats Up Dishes at Northeastern Tunisia’s Harissa Festival

Chahida Boufaied, owner of Dar Chahida Lel Oula, prepares the Harissa in her house in Nabeul, Tunisia, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ons Abid)
Chahida Boufaied, owner of Dar Chahida Lel Oula, prepares the Harissa in her house in Nabeul, Tunisia, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ons Abid)
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Chili Paste Heats Up Dishes at Northeastern Tunisia’s Harissa Festival

Chahida Boufaied, owner of Dar Chahida Lel Oula, prepares the Harissa in her house in Nabeul, Tunisia, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ons Abid)
Chahida Boufaied, owner of Dar Chahida Lel Oula, prepares the Harissa in her house in Nabeul, Tunisia, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ons Abid)

For years, Tunisians have been picking bright red peppers, combining them with garlic, vinegar and spices and turning them into a saucy spread called harissa. The condiment is a national staple and pastime, found in homes, restaurants and food stalls throughout the coastal North African nation.

Brick-red, spicy and tangy, it can be scooped up on bread drizzled with olive oil or dabbed onto plates of eggs, fish, stews or sandwiches. Harissa can be sprinkled atop merguez sausages, smeared on savory pastries called brik or sandwiches called fricassées, The Associated Press reported.
In Nabeul, the largest city in Tunisia’s harissa-producing Cap Bon region, local chef and harissa specialist Chahida Boufayed called it “essential to Tunisian cuisine.”
“Harissa is a love story,” she said at a festival held in honor of the chili paste sauce in the northeastern Tunisian city of Nabeul earlier this month. “I don’t make it for the money.”
Aficionados from across Tunisia and the world converged on the 43-year-old mother’s stand to try her recipe. Surrounded by strings of drying baklouti red peppers, she described how she grows her vegetables and blends them with spices to make harissa.
The region’s annual harissa festival has grown in the two-plus years since the United Nations cultural organization, UNESCO, recognized the sauce on a list of items of intangible cultural heritage, said Zouheir Belamin, the president of the association behind the event, a Nabeul-based preservation group. He said its growing prominence worldwide was attracting new tourists to Tunisia, specifically to Nabeul.
UNESCO in 2022 called harissa an integral part of domestic provisions and the daily culinary and food traditions of Tunisian society, adding it to a list of traditions and practices that mark intangible cultural heritage.
Already popular across North Africa as well as in France, the condiment is gaining popularity throughout the world from the United States to China.
Seen as sriracha’s North African cousin, harissa is typically prepared by women who sun-dry harvested red peppers and then deseed, wash and ground them. Its name comes from “haras” – the Arabic verb for “to crush” – because of the next stage in the process.
The finished peppers are combined it with a mixture of garlic cloves, vinegar, salt, olive oil and spices in a mortar and pestle to make a fragrant blend. Variants on display at Nabeul’s Jan. 3-5 festival used cumin, coriander and different spice blends or types of peppers, including smoked ones, to create pastes ranging in color from burgundy to crimson.
“Making harissa is an art. If you master it, you can create wonders,” Boufayed said.