Nassau, Bahamas – With less than two months away until the biggest runway show to hit the Bahamian shores, Mode Iles Ltd, producers of the award-winning Islands of the World Fashion Week (IWFW), have created a designer competition for novice designers based in The Bahamas. The competition; “Runway to Fashion Week”, loosely based on America’s “Project Runway”, was created to involve local novice designers and gradually expose their talent to a larger market. The event will take place on October 3rd beginning at 5pm at Mario’s Bowling and Entertainment Palace.
The two part event will feature 6 talented designers, showcasing 3-5 of their designs before a panel of local fashion icons, who will score and critique their work. In the second segment, the designers will each present a newly created “cultural-fashion” design, encompassing indigenous elements. At the end of the intense competition, the winner will receive fabric courtesy of Bahama Handprints for the opportunity to showcase a line of 5-10 garments on the “Islands of the World Fashion Week” runway to be held in November, and the chance of a lifetime to attend one of the world’s most prestigious schools of fashion design by way of the “Harl Taylor Fashion Scholarship”.
The judging panel will include Pamela Burnside- highly qualified Bahamian fashion designer and co-owner/operator of Doongalik Studios; Percy Wallace- award-winning local designer with more than two-decades of experience, more notably in the pageantry realm; and Tyrina Neely- an entrepreneur, stylist, columnist and popular fashionista with an active fashion background.
Joining them, as the event’s host, will be Island 102.9 FM’s Danielle Anusiem. She is a young woman that is not afraid to say what’s on her mind. And if you tune in to 102.9 FM weekdays, 6-10am, you will certainly get to hear it. She is the co-host of Island FM’s popular show, “The Morning Boil”, alongside Eddie Carter. Anusiem is also the station’s morning news anchor.
Operations Manager for Mode Iles Ltd, Kedar Clarke, says, “The Runway to Fashion Week should be an exciting time because the talent is insurmountable among Bahamian designers and so it will be very interesting to see what designs they come up with and who will make the top spot. Over the years, there continues to be a void within the Bahamian fashion community for exposing talent to an international market, this event acts as that preliminary platform for such exposure.”
The “Runway to Fashion Week” event is also one of the events under the CariFringe festival calendar that is scheduled for October 1-11. CariFringe is an annual ten day regional arts and culture festival that has been designed to feature a cross-section of Bahamian and Caribbean arts.
For more information, please contact Mr. Kedar Clarke at kclarke@islandsfashionweek.com or telephone 1-242-356-6133. You can also visit the website: www.islandsfashionweek.com
