Caribbean Fashion's Heading Nowhere Fast - A Rant.

So the title of this post is a fairly 'eyebrow raising' one, and rightfully so.

The purpose of this blog is to provide a talking point on the Trinidadian and the regional fashion and style scene: in the process of doing so, it's sometimes tough not to be greatly annoyed.

I'm annoyed because for all the apparent strides the regional fashion glitterati are making in an effort to engender the growth of the fashion industry, there are still way too many people and entities who don't give a rat's bum about supporting and developing local fashion.

I say this because of the proliferation of nonchalant responses and half hearted efforts from local corporate entities, sponsors, designers and sundry that I've received and have heard of thus far, with regards to supporting varying fashion-focused projects.

These are the people and entities whose idea of doing 'business' is practicing nepotism in its most bane and vile form; the said same ones who solely trade favours for favours and pimp the media with propaganda-esque PR releases and advertisements that trade off on a supposedly 'fashion-forward' approach, when in fact they couldn't care less about developing an industry that's on the brink of explosion.

I also say this particularly because of the neverending stream of emails I regularly receive from people the world over, who come across this blog and upon reading about one Caribbean designer or the other, promptly email to inquire where said designer's fashions could be bought.

After trying to most recently explain to a disbelieving Caribbean fashion lover why it was virtually impossible to purchase the designs of a particular Trinidadian designer (who's website is listed on this blog) outside of Trinidad, I realized there was a huge quandry regarding Caribbean Fashion.

For all of the fashion weeks across the region, and for all of the Caribbean fashion magazines and such, the industry is still weak in the knees. On the other hand, there are countless 'no-name' clothing and accessory designers from all corners of the world whose works pop up in all of the noted international fashion magazines, and even they can manage to whip together some sort of world-reaching image branding for their creations.

These savvy designers do not reserve their promotion and reach to their own country; instead they cast a wide net and make their designs readily available to the world. Why then, do our regional designers seem to only create designs for the select few in their own country?

Some of the designers themselves do not take their craft as nothing more than a 'thing' they use to grandiose themselves. If you try to google them, next to no search results come up; it's as if they are nonexistent!

And if you are lucky enough to droll up a website for some of them, it's because their sites are full of broken links, out-of-order contact information and out-dated images. They do not realize that their lackadaisical, insular view of the regional fashion world is leaving them far, far behind.

When people like you and I can cull together blogs about our interests and area(s) of expertise, and simple crafts people can form either free or basic e-commerce websites to promote their designs, there is absolutely no excuse for the larger regional entities to be lagging behind, don't you think?

Especially when there are people who are interested in what they have to offer...

LMN Harris.