It all started three years ago with a group of students with two interests that aren’t often found in tandem: fashion and social justice.

As the group prepares for its annual fashion show today as part of United Nations Week, the three organizers say that Fashion Fights Poverty — which has transformed from a senior thesis project to a professional philanthropic organization — couldn’t be going more smoothly.

Founded by Michael Dumlao (GRD ’06), Sylvie Launghy and Kadrieka Maiden, the organization — featuring the motto “Looking good, by doing good” — aims to break the stereotype of fashion being the hobby of the wealthy and vapid, by aiming to create ethical and ecological change through fashion.

Dumlao — who called shopping “a civic duty” — said that he wanted to “broaden the idea of doing good beyond the SFS stereotype,” so he tapped into “the power of consumers being the same as the power of citizens.” This year marks the third anniversary of the organization’s fashion show and the first of a new program, The Fashion Fights Poverty Forum, which looks at giving more emphasis to the policy side of the organization’s message. Both the Fashion Fights Poverty Fashion Show, the proceeds of which have gone to various groups supporting fair trade, held today at the Carnegie Library, and the forum, held Tuesday Oct. 23, are a part of United Nations Week 2007, sponsored by the United Nations Association of the National Capital Area.

The forum brought together speakers from various aspects of the arts industry and the fair trade movement discussing the role of fashion in the fight against global poverty. Karen Sommer Shalett, editor in chief of DC Modern Luxury Magazine, said during the panel that that the current do-good attitude in the fashion industry is “very trendy.”

“Hopefully it’s not just a trend, but a movement,” Shalett said.

Shalett said that “things sell because they have a story” and that what we adorn our bodies with is a reflection of who we are, which ends up being a key part of “fashion helping to save the world.” Recent fixtures, like The Gap’s Red campaign and the support of bold-faced names, like Bono, are helping get the message to the masses, she said.

“Fair trade begets eco-chic begets larger issues that affect our world,” Shalett said. Getting the product to the masses is an important step, and that’s where panelist Kimberley Person, director and founder of Gecko Traders, a company that sells fair trade products wholesale, comes in. Person highlighted issues ranging from production and marketing to the importing and selling of goods from third-world countries, stressing the importance of working capital to create that necessary bridge from producer to consumer.

The artisans themselves are, of course, the first step in the chain of fighting poverty, as selling their wares is their chance to help themselves and their families. Panelist Clare Brett Smith, president emerita of Aid to Artisans, a group dedicated to helping artisans get their products to market, sees the hand skills of artisans as a way out of poverty. Her organization, Aid to Artisans, which is also the beneficiary of the FFP Forum and Show, helps artisans sell their works to a modern, mainstream culture. To Smith, that complicated process is important because “we are all part of the same move to a better world.”

Next to speak was Indrasen Vencatachellum, director of Cultural Expressions and Creative Industries for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Vencatachellum emphasized the need to create new ways of addressing the issues and acknowledging that no one organization has the power to fix all the world’s problems, Vencatachellum said that there must be “a pro-active exchange” between various the factions that can help, including the fashion industry.

“Creativity is the only human capital that is distributed equally around the world,” he said.

Dumlao said that he was pleased with the inaugural forum, and that it began an important dialogue between the manufacturer, designer and consumer, highlighting ways that the fashion industry can benefit the rest of the world.

Dumlao and several of the panelists, however, highlighted that the force with ultimately the most power to affect change is the consumer, since the consumer has the purchasing power, which proves the thesis of Fashion Fights Poverty.

As Shalett told the audience: “The responsibility rests with you, the consumer,and your dollars.”