The newly-formed Guyana Fashion Designers Council on Sunday evening staged “Fit Me 2013”, the group’s signature fashion show at the Umana Yana.
The show was organised by the fashion designers council and the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association (GMSA). The event was addressed by Human Services and Social Security Minister Jenifer Webster, GMSA President Clinton Williams, and the feature speaker was European Union Delegation Chargé d’Affaires Derek Lambe.
In his speech, Lambe outlined how EU cooperation is funding fashion design in Guyana via the Caribbean Export Development Agency. He noted that the GMSA had obtained a grant of 30,000 euros from CEDA for capacity building in different areas, one of which is fashion design. This funding assisted in the setting-up of the Guyana Fashion Designers Council, and the funds will also be used to fund capacity-building activities for operators in the local fashion industry, including training by professionals from abroad and visits by local designers to overseas fashion centres.
In a statement, the GMSA said the CEDA grant is reimbursable. According to the association, the grant was approved following a 2012 application it made to CEDA, the Caribbean region’s principal financier for development projects. The funds are being provided from the 10th European Development Fund (EDF), the main instrument for providing “community aid” for development cooperation in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.
During the first quarter of 2013, the GMSA began the initial outreach to local designers and soon thereafter, the Guyana Fashion Designers Council was formed principally to provide a platform that will allow all designers to speak with one voice, to organise capacity-building programmes, secure technical expertise, participate in overseas activities, and find foreign markets.
Certain milestones were set out by Caribbean Export in order to qualify for funding, one of which is the establishment of the council which will be registered shortly. The council must also raise the ‘seed capital’ to build the capacity and competitiveness of the fashion designers cluster.