Port of Spain Fashion Week to launch digital lookbook

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.

“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.

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 to heighten and pay more attention to locally-produced goods.

“Covid allowed the cottage industry to shine in TT. That was a benefit coming out of covid and we wanted to extend and build on that.

“We wanted to show TT that we have great artisans who can produce products of international standard like jewellery, handbags, wallets and even shoes.”

The pandemic also demonstrated a need to develop the strengths of each island so that the region could become sustainable and not as affected by external factors, she said.

Cunningham said with that focus in mind, the organisation reached out to the Caribbean Export Development Agency – a regional trade and investment promotion agency – to help build capacity for regional designers to market inter-regionally, intra-regionally and internationally as well.

Through Caribbean Export’s support, POSFW will be able to share the digital lookbooks with the database of each designer’s buyers around the world.

Each designer has four-eight pieces in the lookbook and the pieces shown are true to each designer’s aesthetic, Cunningham said.

Once this is shared globally with fashion buyers, she believes it could draw more eyes toward the Caribbean fashion industry and open up export opportunities in different markets.

The organisation hopes the lookbooks will be pivotal in helping to persuade designers who don’t have websites of the need to extend their business online.

“It was only a matter of time before we got here. Sometimes, we become complacent in the laid-back nature of the Caribbean – rightfully so. We are marketed like that: the Caribbean is a place where you come to relax. The rest of the world sees us like that.

"But that does not mean the pace at which we do business has to also be relaxed,” she added.

Cunningham said the region has shown it has great fintech (financial technology) capabilities and that needs to be further applied to the fashion and creative sector.

She said all the effort being made to position TT’s MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) in a digital capacity spoke to the fact that there is one common goal – to create opportunities for TT’s fashion MSMEs to take advantage of new digital opportunities.

At the April 29 exhibition and soiree, from 6-9 pm, guests will be able to see all the covers of the digital lookbooks, and will be entertained by a live DJ.

“It is an industry event. An evening of networking with industry partners,” she said.

Come November, the organisation is looking forward to a grand fashion week event.

Given the success of its 2020 and 2021 largely virtual fashion weeks, the organisation plans to maintain a hybrid event.

Cunningham said there will be digital and physical presentations and with the support of its regional partners it will be hosting "one of the best Port of Spain Fashion Weeks ever.”