SINO-Guyana relations took a decidedly novel and welcome twist recently when local designers came together to create some of the most exquisite pieces for a fashion rendezvous in the Chinese capital, Beijing. The event was the hosting, by the Guyana mission there, of a reception and fashion show on Republic Day (February 23) to mark our 40th anniversary as a republic, after gaining independence from Britain on May 26, 1966.

Among those in attendance at the august affair were Mr. Li Jinzhang, Vice-Minister in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China; Mr. Zhao Zhenyu, Special Envoy for Caribbean Affairs in the Chinese Foreign Ministry as well as other high-level officials of the Chinese government; and representatives of the International Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Chinese companies, the Diplomatic Corps in Beijing, and the Chinese media.

According to Chargé d’Affaires at the local Chinese mission, Ms. Choo An Yin, during the course of the reception, “Guyanese national songs were played, videos of tourism were shown, and the audience was treated to a spectacular display of Guyanese fashion.”

All of the pieces on display, she said, were created by a coterie of Guyanese couturiers, among them “big-name designers such as Donna Ramsammy-James, Sonia Noel, and Michelle Cole.”

Noel, who’s President of Guyana’s Fashion Weekend, had earlier whet the appetite of  the fashion-conscious among our Chinese hosts when she led a delegation of local designers last October to Ningbo City in provincial Zhejiang, some ways from Beijing, to participate in a grand fashion exposition being held there at the time.

According to Ms. Choo, it was a first for Guyana “and a step towards participating in many more such events in the future in the fashion industry in the Asian region.”