The Port of Spain Fashion Week (POSFW) will launch its POSFW LookBook Project on April 29 through an art exhibit and fashion soiree at Arnim’s Art Gallery on Tragarete Road, Port of Spain.
It will feature the covers of the lookbook’s 26 designers, blown up and framed. The lookbook features the work of regional and local designers such as TT’s CLD (Charu Lochan Dass), Jamaican designer Tamia Carey and Barbadian designer Suga Apple Swim.
Managing director of POSFW Crystal Cunningham said it started preparing the digital lookbook in December shortly after the 2021 POSFW, from November 24-28.
“We felt the need to give more designers the opportunity to showcase their brands and product offerings,” Cunningham said in a phone interview. It was also an extension of the fashion week, as the country was still under heavy restrictions because of the covid19 pandemic.
[caption id="attachment_950840" align="alignnone" width="683"] The work of 26 regional and local designers like Mark Eastman will be shown in the lookbook. -[/caption]
“The fashion week was limited by capacity and numbers, given the physical show, but, of course, virtually you are not limited. So we wanted to give additional designers the opportunity to participate, and more so regional designers because of limited capacity to travel at that time,” she said.
Cunningham said the organisation started photography in December, but was challenged by the pandemic. That set it back slightly. Half the editing, layout and design was completed in February and the other half in March.
A media release said the digital lookbook was “engineered and conceptualised to not only promote Caribbean designers across various international fashion markets but to also facilitate greater e-commerce and virtual trade exhibits in previously untapped markets.”
The release said, “exponential growth” was on the horizon for e-commerce fashion and accessories. It added that recent data showed the international fashion industry is expected to have a steady increase in sales throughout 2022, and the organisation wanted Caribbean designers to capitalise on that.
The digital lookbook was created with creative direction and styling from Studio Newton and project-management support by Fashion Focus magazine.
“It is our hope to extend this project to designers in the OECS islands, Guyana and Haiti for this year’s fashion week experience, which will be held in November 2022,” the release quoted Cunningham as saying.
The digital lookbook features two sets of designers: fashion and accessory.
[caption id="attachment_950839" align="alignnone" width="768"] Accessory fashion will also feature in the digital lookbook. Its managing director Crystal Cunningham said there was a regional push as shown in the work of Jamaican designer Tamia Carey. -[/caption]
In TT a lot of fashion shows focus on fashion designers and part of the organisation’s plan for POSFW 2021 was to highlight and showcase accessory designers, she said.
Cunningham added that the pandemic allowed the organisation
