XFind out what people are saying about us
Fashion Conference
MAKE IT IN FIJI CONFERENCE 24TH FEBRUARY, 2011.
FASHION , FROM EDUCATION TO MANUFACTURING
FOR ECONOMIC GAIN – SPEECH BY CAROLYN AH KOY
Professor Rider, Distinguished Guests, Fashion Industry Colleagues, Ladies & Gentlemen. Your attendance at this conference today demonstrates your much needed support for our fledgling Fashion Industry – Thank you.
I have been very blessed that my limited efforts in the Fashion industry thus far, have been relatively successful. My Karalina Range which showed its first runaway collection in 2009 and its second in 2010 won The Designer of the Year Award in both years.
Today, I am here at this conference to represent all Designers associated with Fiji Fashion Week - both Established and Emerging Designers as a collective, whose aspirations and challenges have been articulated to me in a survey email prior to this conference.
The responses to questions sent, form a general common theme to which I have taken the liberty to add a more personal snapshot of my own experience as a Designer currently based in Fiji.
Firstly I would like to pay tribute to the hard work by the Fiji Fashion Week team. The Annual Week long events are a great initiative that were first undertaken three years ago in 2008 to harness and showcase the aspiring Designing local Fiji Talent. Not only has it been a great forum which showcases Fiji Designers, but Fiji Fashion Week has been instrumental in a variety of other initiatives that are Fashion Industry related including;educational workshops, conferences, Fashion Education at high school and tertiary level, Model training and marketing, in some cases Designer mentoring with very young Emerging Designers, Various PR and Marketing campaigns both locally and internationally that highlight all different aspects of the Industry, and many other ongoing initiatives that Fiji Fashion Week continues to be involved with. We are all very grateful for these.
All Designers when questioned, unanimously stressed, that the exposure they gained from being part of Fiji Fashion Week was fantastic for their individual profiles as Designers. It not only gave each Designer the confidence to aspire to high standards of both design and quality garment production, but also boosted their branding awareness both in the local market and in 2010 with the Fashion TV presence, on an international scale. In fact , many have reported good sales of their ranges so far since their collections and are happily continuing to design and produce garments on a small scale for commercial sale.
However with these small triumphs, there still remain wider and more fundamental issues that we as an Industry have experienced as ongoing challenges, these prohibit us from being able to develop to our full potential.
In 2009 when I was designing my first ever runway collection I very naively assumed that with a twenty something year established garment industry already in existence, I would be able to draw upon the services of many skilled patternmakers and seamstresses to assist me with realizing my elaborate Designs. I was soon shocked into reality, to be told that no patternmaker services existed in Fiji including at the Garment school, and when I enquired at a couple of garment factories if they would make my collection, I was told that they generally were not interested in small ranges as it would be too hard to do and that I would be hard pressed to find a good seamstress that could sew the quality I envisaged to be the minimum requirement, that my Karalina brand needed to represent.
The weeks that followed included many frustrating and exasperating hours of locating and working very closely with various different ladies across town that had no formal training but only experience in their trade, and who operated from their homes with domestic machines. It was always nerve wracking when they cut the fabrics and a constant worry so as not to spoil my expensive one off pieces of fabric. Modifications had to be made so that we could translate the sketch into reality and thankfully I was able to have a back up plan of getting extra garments made in the event that some of the number one ensemble didn’t turn out as designed. All in all it miraculously worked out and my first collection was born.
After that stressful experience, I decided that to take control of my creativity and design in early 2010 and I opened my own Design Studio to manufacture on a small scale. I managed to do this by scraping together some funds borrowed from my existing business to purchase second hand commercial sewing machines and a cutting table. After many interviews with possible candidates I found a seamstress that I felt would be able to work and grow with my little business to produce for my brand going forward. It is tiny, modest and suits my current requirements. I am hoping to add to this as soon as my brand becomes more established.
My Studio has been operating since May 2010 and it continues to be a challenge to combine high quality and sufficient quantity for my brand to be commercially viable.
In relaying to you my personal experience I am essentially articulating the common challenges that we have all faced as Designers. At this point there are no known skilled pattern makers located in Fiji whose services are available for hire to make our patterns and there are very few garment factories that are set up and willing to take on such small scale production as represented by our designs and ranges.
In collections the pieces are normally one off pieces which means they are detailed, finicky, and often complicated and time consuming to sew. In Fiji, the garment Industry consists of largely CMT factories, where manufacturing lines are designed to sew large quantities and more often then not, each worker often specializes in sewing a particular component of a garment and would not necessarily be able to sew a whole complete garment.
In a nut shell it is a Garment Factories worst nightmare to agree to small runs of complex garments.
We believe that Fashion education that is affordable, appropriate, practical, relevant and teachs the appropriate skills at various levels is still largely lacking in the Fashion Industry in its current state.
The news of the merger of TPAF and FNU came as encouraging when we learnt that the proposed Fashion related courses for what has now become Fiji National University are being scrutinized and overhauled. I have been fortunate to be part of recent meetings with various Fashion educators who have been charged with reviewing the various courses in existence at both what was TPAF and FNU and, based on these they have begun to put together new curriculums for higher end certification and Diploma level courses.
Based on proposals I have seen thus far, they look very promising and we as Designers look forward to courses that are not only structured in blocks of learning whereby those of us who run businesses full time, are able to get credits for knowledge and practical experience that we have already gained in our businesses but also be able to plug into and learn critical and crucial skills that will further enhance our abilities as Designers.
Once the necessary courses are implemented at FNU, I believe that this will have a natural flow on effort throughout all areas of the Garment Industry. The CMT factories, no matter their size, will then be able to employ more skilled and versatile workers, and therefore be able to take on a larger variety of garment orders that may be smaller and more complicated in design but have a higher yield per garment in pricing, thus allowing them access to a wider segment of the global market. Higher skilled workers improve quality and productivity which would make Fiji as an Industry more competitive.
The additional benefit of a more skilled Fashion Industry is the creation of a sub culture cottage industry that is able to produce top quality and creative designer products which will encourage and give individuals who are trained, confidence to become more entrepreneurial and start up smaller manufacturing and retailing businesses, thus creating more employment and activity on a small business and micro finance scale. Perhaps Fiji can become a destination like Asia where visitors can get made-to-measure, top quality garments made whilst on holiday.
There are other challenges that Designers currently face including the lack of access to a wide variety of good quality of fabrics at affordable prices. The current retail sources are limited and have the potential to become a problem in the future as the Fashion Industry grows. As Designers we are at many times limited in our designs that we are able to manufacture by the fabrics available to us in Fiji.
The other significant challenge for local Designers is the very idea of a “Fiji Designers” branding and the lack of support, understanding and pride in “made in Fiji” products. The general populous and retailers alike are not by in large very aware of what home grown talent is available. They too often are of the belief that they must import clothing that is designed and made in China, India, Australia, New Zealand & elsewhere in order to make good sales. I think as an Industry we still have a lot of work to do to build this Fiji Fashion branding in our own home market.
We are all hopeful that one day soon one can walk down any street in any of our major cities and go into garment retail shops to find a wide range of Fiji Designer Ranges displayed and for sale along side other imported choices.
All in all ladies and Gentlemen, I have tried to outline not only what we as Designers have benefited from being part of Fiji Fashion Week, but I have also attempted to outline many of the challenges that lie ahead for us to overcome.
We continue to strive to realize our full potential and make our individual brands not only work which we can be creatively proud of, but also profitable and commercially viable, as are many other brands of clothing all over the world.
Vinaka vakalevu.