Oh! Colombo 

Tonight is the final of the Spring Summer collections of the Colombo Fashion Week, which began on 21 February. All the glorious fashions showcased have been witnessed and enjoyed by many. 

As usual, CFW’s objective of uplifting Sri Lanka's fashion design industry continues but this season the focus was on several other things. 

“Following trends we noticed that menswear is showing strong growth globally,” says Ajai “and this gave us strong reason to encourage Sri Lankan designers to expand their scope of work from a business point of view. Hence the introduction of menswear was focused and dedicated fashion day which was on the 25th.” 

Day 1 showcased the 10 strong emerging designers, which started as Bright Spark shows. As the CFW Designer development program intensified in the last two years and seeing great results of what fabulous collections the designers are now showcasing it has become stronger every year. The collection was showcased on Park Street Mews which had a great ambience. 

Days 2, 3, 4 consisted of nine designers showcasing their designs. There were great outfits showcased by many local and international designers as follows: 

Gaetano Navarra (Italy), a top designer at Milan Fashion Week who celebrated 25 years at Milan Fashion Week just two weeks ago. On the same level there was Lars Anderson (New York), Mevan Kaluaratchchi (Holland), Samant Chauhan (India), House of 3 (India), Bibi Russell (Bangladesh) and the iconic Rizwan Beyg. 

This time round there were many models from Sri Lanka as CFW had announced an island-wide model call, which resulted in a number of models who had been unable to participate before coming forward.  In addition there were models from Germany, the Czech Republic, Russia, Moltova, Belarus, Switzerland and Ukraine. 

Fashion and Food was the platform where fashion influences food, resulting in interesting menus. The week of Fashion Week began on 21st Feb with Fashion and Food came alive at all Park Street Restaurants and the Hilton Restaurants along with Hilton's Iko-Tei at Dutch Hospital. 

On the 25th Feb there was a very successful Fashion Photography workshop which was conducted by celebrity photographer Rid Burman. 

Today, there is a coffee chat with Yolanda where she will share her experiences, challenges and opportunities in running a fashion business in Sri Lanka.  It is a workshop for any interested designers in Sri Lanka. 

Key partners who have supported CFW on this journey are:  HSBC, Hilton, Land Rover, Ponds, Wineworld.lk, CJS, Vision Care, Ramani Fernando Salons, Hellmann, Spa Ceylon, Illy Coffee, Hameedias, Daily Mirror, Sunday Times, Daily FT, and Hi. 

Ajai, who attributes all of his and the Show’s success to the Grace Of God says he began this 13 years ago and God's grace and His hand on this has been just amazing. 

Well done Ajai, the entire fashion industry and the fashionistas in Colombo look forward to witness this annual fashion fiesta.