CubaPLUS Magazine

Fashion, something fundamental in people's lives, whether women or men, became this Tuesday night the center of attention of all Caribbean people because the Cuban capital served as the setting for the Fashion in da House event, a parade organized by UNESCO and the European Union (EU).

This important catwalk that featured the participation of 16 young designers from the Caribbean, it is part of a program of activities aimed at promoting the fashion industry in the region, a sector with great development potential in the area.

International experts in fashion and entrepreneurship, including Omoyemi Akerele, general director of Lagos Fashion Week, Nigeria, advised young people designers and was part of the jury of the Transcultura Awards.

At the event, held at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana, the young participating designers, from Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Cuba, Guyana, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago are the finalists of the Made in the Caribbean Fashion Design Competition.


With this important action, UNESCO and the European Union want to recognize young talent of the region and promote entrepreneurship in the fashion industry, as part of the activities of the Transcultura program; integrating Cuba, the Caribbean and the European Union, through Culture and Creativity, financed by the European Union.

The program included a catwalk of the Mondriaberas guest collection, in tribute to Piet Mondriaan, Dutch avant-garde painter, member of the De Stijl movement and founder of the neoplasticism together with Theo van Doesburg.

The first parade of the night presented women's and men's clothing with motifs of quadrilaterals, according to Mondriaan's pictorial line, while the second included the finalist collections of the Made in The Caribbean Fashion Design contest, of the Transculture program.

The awards of this important event included the public award achieved by the designer from the Dominican Republic, Génesis Vázquez, while the grand prize was shared between Naballah Chi, from Trinidad and Tobago, and Rhea Cummins-Jordan, from Barbados.

A special prize was also presented for the extraordinary design of the artist from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Karen De Freitas. The young winners will be awarded a two-month artistic residency at the Rog Center in Ljubljana (Slovenia).

Parallel to the event, the designers participate in a professional program that includes workshops, keynote lectures, visits to workshops and stores and a tour of the University of the Arts in the Cuban capital. Of course, Fashion in da House featured a cultural show by the group Synthesis.

The UNESCO representative in Cuba, Anne, was present at this outstanding event. Lemaistre. The jury was made up of renowned personalities from the world of fashion: Meta Štular (Slovenia), Terri-Karelle Reid (Jamaica), Javier Fernández Poyo (Spain), Carmen Gómez Pozo (Cuba), as well as Omoyemi Akerele (Nigeria).