Local designers for Miami Fashion Week

The National Investment Promotion Inc. (NIPI) in collaboration with the Centre for Enterprise Development (CED) Business Gateway Project has sponsored thirteen (13) local designers to participate in the upcoming Miami Fashion Week, scheduled to take place in Miami next week.{{more}}

The 11th annual Miami Fashion Week(r) will take place from March 19-22, 2009 at SOHO Studios in Miami’s trendy Wynwood Art District. As the largest Hispanic and International fashion event in the US, Miami Fashion Week(r) has brought the best in Latin and International fashion, beauty, music and art to the forefront of the American fashion scene.

With a crossover of international culture from designers, entertainers and celebrities from around the world including Spain, India, Italy, Canada, Afghanistan, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Australia, South Africa, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, Mexico and all countries throughout South and Central America with hundreds of international media, jet-setters and fashion royalty arriving to attend the shows.

The Delegation from St. Vincent is the largest contingent at this year’s show, comprising of Kimon Baptiste, Kimya Glasgow, Tamiko Browne, Karen DeFreitas Fraser, Debbie Barbour, Naudica “Pinky” Williams, Merle Gellizeau, Vonley Greaves, Bartholomew Quammie, Jeremy Payne, Sherika Sayers and Nickillia Slater-Bridgewater.

Due to the trends in the Creative industry globally, NIPI realized the potential that is quite evident in the Creative Sector and is therefore committed to promoting it and has worked to make the necessary contact with the organizers for Miami Fashion Week to ensure that Vincentian Designers had their moment on stage. NIPI has invested over fifty thousand dollars (EC$50,000) in Media coverage, and International PR Campaigns to ensure that the Fashion World knows that we exist and that we are a forced to be reckoned with.

CED Business Gateway, in keeping with its mandate to promote youth entrepreneurship, is placing special focus on developing the creative industry in St. Vincent and the Grenadines; and its continued efforts to provide opportunities for local designers to gain exposure and build marketing networks abroad. Hence, CED Business Gateway has invested close to three hundred thousand dollars (EC$300,000) in making this Miami trip a worthwhile experience for the local designers.

The NIPI and CED recognizes that this development initiative of the creative sector, i.e. fashion industry, is very significant to enable St. Vincent and the Grenadines to preserve and improve its comparative advantages and chart the new course for the Fashion Industry in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

The delegation leaves the State for Miami this Sunday. They will be accompanied by Shanna Browne and Angenella Young of the NIPI, Natalie Mitchell and Keisha Phillips of CED and Mr. Alonzo Sayers of API, who would be providing media coverage for the event. They will return on March 23rd.