Twelve designers have put up a really impressive show at the last day of the Fiji Fashion Week this year that saw designers from Fiji, Canada and Australia.
The designers include Samson Lee, Temesia Tuicaumia, Su Samuels, Hupfeld Hoerder, Rosie Emberson Semisi, Laisiasa Davetawalu, Atelaite Daunibau, Jyoti Shandil, Tracey Farrington, Epeli Tuibeqa, indigenous Canadian designer Helen Oro and Daniel Avakian from Australia.
Fiji Fashion Week Director, Ellen Whippy-Knight says the show is successful because of the people they meet and the designers are really passionate about their job.
She says they always bring in designers from overseas because we do not have a fashion school or a design and arts school in Fiji which is what we need.
Whippy-Knight says bringing in other designers shows Fijian designers what they are doing in their own country however, this is not to compete with them but to understand what other people are doing only makes them do better in their own designs.
She further says the future for Fiji Fashion Week is definitely very strong.
Minister for Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation, Lynda Tabuya has congratulated the designers for their persistence and perseverance.
Tabuya says they need support and the government is ready to support designers in the Fijian fashion industry.
Tabuya says she has been blown away by the level of creativity and ingenuity displayed.
She says she is really impressed by the use of material that is available in nature, tradition and our daily living and how they have been up-cycled.
The designers were also being judged by fashion educator Nicholas Huxley, Creative Designer and Director of Fijian fashion brand 8 Mountains Moira Solvalu and Jon Apted.
The winners will be announced next month.
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