Jamaica Style Fashion Week 2012

Check out the best pics from the Jamaica Style Fashion Week 2012. Whilst Jamaica is celebrating its 50th anniversary of independence this summer, it also celebrated its 8th Jamaica Style Week (JSW). Perhaps my little island will soon also be known for fashion alongside Rhum, Coffee, Bod Marley, Marijuana and Usain Bolt – well there’s so much more but that is for another article.

The annual four-day event boasts itself as “the iriest fashion week in the Caribbean” (translation of irie – cool) and hosts a series of outdoor shows and parties at heritage sites around Jamaica’s capital city, Kingston.

This year’s JSW began on Thursday 21 May, with High Tea ‘N Style, a charity fashion show hosted by the First Lady Patricia Allen on the lawns of King’s House. The show was filled with not only fashion but also fun, a surprise appearance by guest of honour Tyson Beckford, a show where male models handed out red roses to front row fillies, a dance troupe who did a routine to Beenie Man’s Rum & Redbull and a model competition that invited female volunteers from the audience to take part in a pose-off. A four-year-old girl won.

30 designers showed collections themed around island life. Revealing swimwear, tropical sun dresses and gala gowns for the ladies and for the men flashy and casual suiting.

It’s a pleasure to see that Jamaica’s fashion industry is growing, especially given that the island is filled with creative and talented people. Fashion is a very expensive business and one in which cash is spent upfront with perhaps months before seeing a return. In a country with an economy as poor as that of Jamaica, fashion is too risky a profession for many, not to mention that there is a lack of formal educational institutions for fashion, retail space is limited and there is a lack of availability of varied fabrics.  However, despite it’s short coming this small island put on a BIG show.

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