Vincentian designer to represent SVG in St Maarten

Vincentian designer Kimya Glasgow will be representing St Vincent and the Grenadines in an event in St Maarten entitled “Colour Revolution,” which is being held from May 28 to June 1.{{more}}

Hosted by the Miami/Trinidadian team of Caribbean Fashion Style Journal (CFstyle.com) with the National Fashion Development Association (NFDA) and the Government of St Maarten, Colour Revolution will feature Resort 2015 collections from designers.

The event is specifically geared toward Caribbean designers who can “revolutionize the world through fashion.” Besides runway presentations, there will also be exhibitions, networking opportunities with industry insiders, workshops and a Business Forum.  The event will feature buyers primarily from the Northern Caribbean and regional and international media including Essence Magazine, The Huffington Post, and Ocean Style Magazine.

CFStyle has hand-picked participating designers, who will be given the opportunity to sell their lines via the CFstyle.com online store, to be launched at the event, which will allow Caribbean designers to display, showcase and sell their clothing online, under one umbrella.

According to Glasgow, her current collection is full of colour. “After my father passed away, I found myself bowled over by grief, because he was a father, supporter and friend. My whole family was emotionally devastated. When I finally got myself back to sketching, all of my ideas were a blaze of colour, which is very unlike my usual aesthetic. I am known mostly for whites and always played with black, white and grey. It was the refreshing change that I needed to get back into the saddle and start meaningfully producing again.”

The collection is inspired by the contrast between English and African culture.  “I imagined myself sitting in a typical English garden owned by a proud, affluent West African woman.”

Glasgow’s participation in Colour Revolution was jointly facilitated by the SVG Economic Partnership Implementation Unit, which is housed within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade, Consumer Affairs and Information Technology.

In Glasgow’s assessment “Opportunities, such as this, have the potential to eventually bring foreign revenue to SVG, through exporting of our local product.”

The Economic Partnership Agreement is a trade agreement between 15 CARIFORUM states and 27 states of the European Community.

This Agreement offers businesses in SVG significant opportunities for trade and investment.  

One of the goals is to support the conditions for increased investment, private sector initiative, supply capacity and competitiveness among traditional and non-traditional export sectors.

The creative sector, which includes the fashion industry, is one of these non-traditional export sectors for which the EPA is a doorway for many opportunities for development.