Strong int'l presence for CFW 2013

Ready For CFW (RFCFW) Live, the latest innovation for Caribbean Fashionweek, has its final presentation tomorrow, ahead of next weekend's 13th renewal of Caribbean Fashionweek. It begins on June 6 and runs until June 10.

RFCFW features some of Jamaica's hottest emerging designers, as well as a few established designers, showing at PULS8, 38 Trafalgar Road, New Kingston. Tomorrow they will be joined by singer Nickeisha Barnes, who will perform live. One of the emerging designers will win an opportunity to show a collection at the big event next week. Another will win the DHL award for the best DHL design. Admission is free and the public is invited.

Designers, supermodels, superstars, celebrities, stylists and members of the press will start arriving in Jamaica at the end of the month for Caribbean Fashionweek 2013. It takes place at the National Indoor Sports Centre in Kingston. Events will also be held at the Spanish Court Hotel, PULS8 in New Kingston, Villa Ronai in Stony Hill and the Redbones Blues Café.

This year, CFW will feature a slew of emerging as well as established designers from Jamaica, the wider Caribbean, Central America, the United Kingdom, Germany, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, the United States of America (USA) and Canada. Major Caribbean delegations will come from Trinidad and Tobago as well as Belize, Barbados, the Cayman Islands and the Bahamas

It is the first year a designer from Zimbabwe will show at CFW. Top stylist from that country, Sabina Mutsvati, will show a collection highlighting the current quality of Zimbabwean fashion.

Award-winning British designer and Vogue favourite, Gavin Douglas, returns to show a full collection at CFW for the first time in four years. In recent renewals Douglas has shown small capsule collections, or has come only as arbiter of the CFW Emerging Designer Award, won last year by Cayman's Tigerlily.

Out of Ethiopia, collections from top stylists Mafi and Fikirte Addis, as well as supermodel Yardanos, will grace the runway. On the musical side of things, Ethiopian superstar Kuri will open for American pop sensation Kelly Rowland.

Exquisite collections

In previous years Nigerian designer Deola Sagoe has shown exquisite collections at CFW. However, with both Zimbabwe and Ethiopia on show this year, CFW is clearly building a fashion bridge between Africa and the Caribbean.

Also returning to CFW are Trinidad's finest. Claudia Pegus and Heather Jones, both award-winning designers, return after a four and five-year hiatus respectively. They will be joined by trendsetting stylists Robert Young of the Cloth, as well as their countrymen Saleem Samuels and the Wadada Movement.

Kim Simplis Barrow, wife of the prime minister of Belize and that country's Special Envoy for Women and Children, heads a Belizean delegation to Caribbean Fashionweek. The party will include officials, designers and models. While in Jamaica, Barrow and her team will visit CFW events and participate in activities such as the business forum and designer workshops. She will also meet with local officials, especially those responsible for creative industry development locally.