ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - At a glitzy event, the Iraqi capital city, Baghdad, hosted a fashion show last week amid the eternally volatile security conditions where car bombs are a regular occurrence and fear of more attacks by Islamic State are commonplace.

Around 500 people attended the show to watch 16 young female Iraqi model collections by six fashion designers.

"Despite dangerous security situations our country has faced in recent years, and despite our community's perceptions of women, we are here today to prove the existence of women in the community and to tell them 'we are still fine and secure, there is not only violence and war ongoing in Iraq but we also enjoy a secure Iraq'," one of the models told Rudaw.

The show took place at a hotel in Baghdad, named Baghdad’s Royal Tulip, but it is still best known to Iraqis as the Rasheed, which was built under Saddam Hussein and stands on the edge of the fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad.

This is the biggest such fashion show Baghdad has held in decades. The last significant such occasion took place in 1988 at the Palestine Hotel.

Organizers and guests alike said this fashion show was a welcome distraction from the ongoing conflict across the country.

Rudaw