Taken from: Trinidad Express
Caribbean Fashionweek (CFW), the Caribbean's premier fashion and style event will be held this year at the National Indoor Sports Centre, Kingston, Jamaica, June 7-11. The event was informally launched in the UK during London Fashion Week last month, where some of the region's best fashion designers showed collections at the first ever International Fashion Showcase, organized by the British Council and the British Fashion Council as part of London Fashion Week.
Pulse, CFW producers and presenters, used the opportunity to engage the international fashion community and to promote wide participation in the 2012 event which will incorporate a number of new features. The event has already been endorsed by several regional industry players, including Caribbean Export Development Agency, which included a CFW feature in the Look Book for the Caribbean Collections in London. Most of the designers who showed in London will also show collections at CFW.
European and African industry heavyweights such as Federico Poletti of Vogue Italia, David Pun Buying Director of Harvey Nichols, Toccara Jones winner of America's Next Top Model and star of TV One/Donald Trump's The Ultimate Merger, Stefan Seigal of Not Just a Label, Giorgia Catarini of Italian Glamour and Regina Jere-Malanda of New African Woman, have either confirmed their attendance at CFW, or expressed a keen interest in attending. Confirmed UK designers for CFW include emerging designer Jhaniel Smith and CFW fave and Vogue designer Gavin Douglas.
Caribbean Fashionweek takes another giant step forward in 2012, as Pulse redoubles its efforts to take Caribbean fashion to a place of enhanced respect, recognition and profit, at the center of world fashion. This initiative continues to be executed in partnership with Caribbean stakeholders, including the Caribbean Export Development Agency, the Caribbean Fashion Industry Association, Jampro, the Jamaica Tourist Board, various related Governmental and non-Governmental agencies, as well as other regional stakeholders and industry professionals.
CFW is the largest, most far reaching and strategically important fashion event in the region. Pulse has developed an event of a high international standard to showcase the best of the Caribbean's designers, as well as other world regarded stylists from various parts of the globe. Approximately 50 designers from 20 countries participate each year. The CFW Business Forum, Exhibition, superstar concert performances, supermodels, after parties, tours and fabulous experiences will all continue in 2012.
Since its inception in 2001, Caribbean Fashionweek has been the main catalyst for Caribbean fashion industry development. An ambitious project, CFW has brought the world of fashion to the region, as it seeks to focus international attention on what the Caribbean has to offer, while working with stakeholders to build capacity and generate business for Caribbean stylists.
In the process CFW designers have been featured in Vogue, The Associated Press, The Independent, Fashion TV Paris, The New York Times, i-D, The BBC and a host of other media around the world. The event has received a number of awards and has been recognised by no less an entity than British Vogue, as an important new development in world fashion.
The challenge remains to effectively assist our Caribbean designers in their efforts to build their businesses, so that they can take full advantage of the marketing that the event creates, utilise the experience gained, the international press generated, the buyers marketplace provided and the business forums presented: in short the full CFW experience. Fashion week continues this process in 2012.