GUYANA Fashion Weekend (GFW) will commemorate its fifth anniversary with a one-week festival of style encompassing fashion, cuisine and culture.
This year, GFW is carded for September 24 and 25, but would be prefaced by a string of activities, including model searches, training workshops, previews and corporate social responsibility initiatives. The models, designers, stylists, makeup artists, hairstylists, and the plethora of practitioners that make up the fashion industry will all be engaged in developmental activities serving to upgrade their skills and improve their service.
A food festival is being developed within this year’s programme to highlight the unique flavours of Guyanese cuisine, from authentic East Indian, African, Portuguese, Chinese, Amerindian and European dishes, to the local adaptations and alternatives.
This component is intended to add mass appeal to the menu of fashion projects styled for this year’s anniversary, and explains the increase in interest on the part of the partners.
The inclusion of the Arts — performing, visual and graphic, on the other hand – is intended to help define identity branding, which is akin to fashion imaging and cultural development.
With the Arts having the capacity of empowering the youth and nourishing the national psyche in times of economic crisis/readjustment, it is incumbent upon one to  embrace all its various facets in defining our style. Partners are welcome to be pioneers in determining Guyanese style.
Now in its fifth year, GFW is aligning itself with two international contemporary trends to brand the 2011 installment of its fashion festival.
GFW 2011 will celebrate by paying tribute to the forests, in recognition of the United Nations 2011 declaration celebrating people of the forests, which acknowledges more-so the global significance of Guyana as a forest-intensive country, and promotes its Low-Carbon Development Strategy thrust.
In addition, 2011 marks a year dedicated to people of African descent, and as such, GFW will honour this observance by hosting a pageant showcasing the diversity and  miscegenation of races which abound in Guyana, and which is also common to the Region, as well as to the whole Caribbean Diaspora.
GFW’s Sonia Noel said in a release that such an admixture of socio-cultural components can not only prove monumental for the event, but also take national event tourism drives to a milestone dimension with the inclusion of more aspects of the Arts and Culture.
Plans, she said, are well underway for this creative cornucopia of talent directed by Caribbean fashion guru and style connoisseur, Richard Young, now back here after a hiatus.
Noel said fashion has so become a platform which draws a wide cross-section of participants, patrons and public interest, that it becomes opportune for partners to brand with the developmental strategies employed by the GFW team.
All of the initiatives, she said in the release, serve to engage youth empowerment, promote sustainable development and raise awareness of environmental issues.

As such, she encourages that partners facilitate such nation-building exercises as an expression of their own corporate social responsibility. By their branding with dynamic events like GFW, Noel said, their public image/profile is enhanced, and they gain access to a new/modern and specialised client base widening the scope of their marketing campaigns. “A return on the investment is assured; the mileage far outweighs the expenses incurred,” she said, adding: “Television, radio and press coverage is immeasurable, through publicity and advertising.

“Hospitality and service-oriented interaction speak volumes for the public appeal of a partner’s business; exclusive opportunities for business alignments and networking abound in the run-up to the festival.  Regional links become accessible and encourage trade and export possibilities/ventures.”
A special 5th Anniversary edition magazine will be available. Auditions for models and designers were scheduled for yesterday and today at the Waterchris Hotel on Waterloo Street, here in the city. For more information, feel free to call 2263099 or email guyanafw@gmail.com