Singapore Fashion Festival styles the region

Ve Handojo, Contributor

The fifth Singapore Fashion Festival, being held from March 24 to April 3, again highlighted Singapore's ambition to become a regional fashion hub.

The annual event took place in the heart of Singapore, on Orchard Road. In the center of Ngee Ann City, a huge tent was set up. The runway inside became a stage where multinational brands such as Versace, Kenzo and JPG displayed their Summer/Spring collections.

The festival did everything possible to involve the public, with entrance passes to most of the fashion shows freely downloadable from the Internet. No wonder that all of the shows were packed.

During the event, Singapore celebrated the style, beauty and glamor of fashion culture. Local designer stores and brands such as Pois, The Link and the new kid on the block, Hybrid-O!, showed off their collections. Supporting events like a fashion photography exhibition and beauty workshops were held to make the festival a one-stop fashion shopping experience.

Singapore designer Ashley Isham returned home to applause from an appreciative audience. His clever and neat British-influenced designs proved a bit hit on the stage and on the streets.

With an established store in London, Isham has designed clothes for Jordan's royal family, Princess Zara Phillips, as well as pop star Dido.

Other local designers found it hard to share the limelight with Isham. Their names blended together under brands such as Hybrid-O!, which was established by four young Singaporean designers. Their designs meet the needs of the public, much more according to international trends, rather than serving as a distinctive line.

Well managed by fashion business professionals, it is clear that Singapore's designers have a chance to grab a big chunk of the regional market. Over the past few years, labels like ProjectShopBloodBrothers, M)phosis and bods have grabbed the attention of fashion shoppers in neighboring countries.

In Jakarta, shoppers are more into bags by ProjectShopBloodBrothers than local designers, because of the quality and designs, and relatively affordable prices.

Brimming with confidence, Singapore continues to move to establish itself as a regional fashion leader; quite an ambition considering the relatively small number of fresh fashion designers there when compared to other countries, like, say, Indonesia.

The Singapore Fashion Festival was aimed at confirming the island-state's position as Asia's capital of fashion shopping, rather than being about fashion itself. The festival did not focus on artsy haute couture, instead encouraging fashion shopping by displaying ready-to-wear clothes.

International labels participated by exhibiting their drained collections. The highly anticipated Versace show was not a satisfying style gig because of clothes that looked tiringly conservative. The evening gowns were repetitions of cuts from the last two or three years, while other items looked as if they were just discovered in a time capsule. The show confirmed Versace as the "has-been" of the fashion world.

Meanwhile, the range of male suits by Givenchy failed to impress most of the audience due to the absence of the more daring colors and patterns presented by house designer Oswald Boateng. Kenzo hit the right note, bringing cheers of approval from the audience, yet this was simply because the clothes were intended to meet local demand rather than to blow away people's mind.

Surely this brought local designers much more to the front line. The audience cheered the bods collection, and there was notable applause for Individual Expression, which was a breath of fresh air for Singaporeans.

It was definitely not an intended strategy to feature the best collections of Singapore's local designers, along with predictable items from multinational designers. Yet, through the (intended) choice of models for the catwalk, the Singapore Fashion Festival indirectly proclaimed to the public that wearing local brands can help them look as international as their models -- a bunch of slightly dressed guys and girls with Eurasian faces.

The mission of the event was to provide a regional style makeover. While regional designers are taking more and more influence from Singaporean designers, the Singaporeans are focusing on "what's happening" in London, Paris, Italy and other fashion capitals in the world. In this way, Singapore is halfway to confirming its status as a fashion hub to connect the markets in neighboring countries with the biggest fashion capitals in the world: Paris, Milan, Tokyo and more.

Though undaring in terms of designs, the Singapore Fashion Festival still provided a valuable case study on the fashion business and management. The government seems to understand the long-term benefits of this big-budget event. Through the Singapore Tourism Board, the government supplied the majority of the funding for the festival. Moreover, Mercedes Benz was the presenting sponsor.

Clearly, they all played their parts in endorsing Singapore's fashion business, and positioning the country to take a leading role in the regional fashion industry.