Do the smaller Fashion Weeks outside of Paris and London matter?
Whoops of excitement reverberate around the humid National Indoor Sports Centre in Kingston, Jamaica, as the women in the crowd jump out of their seats, waving their arms and screaming. Their excitement has nothing to do with sport, however. A succession of male models have just swaggered down the catwalk trying to out pose each other, and the one who pauses to shake his dreadlocks and rip open his shirt creates the biggest tremor of hysteria. Welcome to Sunday night at Caribbean Fashion Week. Featuring designers from throughout the Caribbean, and several guests from overseas, the annual CFW is now in its seventh year. Paris, Milan, New York and London might still be the fashion world’s big four, but it’s now de rigueur for almost every country from Brazil to the Ukraine to Kazakhstan (yes, really) to have one or more fashion weeks. Those in Sao Paulo, Sydney, Tokyo, and Moscow are some of the more creatively exciting fledgling events, with Sao Paulo and Sydney proving a strong commerc
