Anya wants more for fashion

The regional Fashion Week event, she said, will only be valuable when there is a commercial aspect with respect to the audience, meaning there must be buyers in the audience, with local and regional press also playing their part to promote the event. She added, however, that for designers to capitalise on any success, there must also be proper infrastructure for taking local products to warehouses and department stores in the global markets, or increasing the pathway between the production of the garments and the distribution of them on a wider scale.

“The fact remains though, there aren’t many manufacturers who can support the quantity and quality of production. There has to be understanding beyond the government to the people of TT, anybody interested in the industry, that not everybody is a designer, that there are people who are seamstresses, pattern makers, engineers who run the factories ...” Ayoung Chee said during a news conference at the Carlton Savannah in St Ann’s yesterday.

She added that what she personally most wanted to see was a “ Made in Trinidad and Tobago” label.

Ayoung Chee said she looks forward to collaborating with Prime Minister Kamla Persad- Bissessar, who recently launched the Fashion Association of TT, to develop the industry.

Ayoung Chee returned to Trinidad on Friday — the first time since she won Project Runway — after spending time in London, England, where she accompanied TT ambassadors Brian Lara and Dwight Yorke in representing this country at the World Travel Market 2011.

And like a true Trinbagonian, Ayoung Chee boasted that TT was the “most impressive presence” at the function, complete with steelpan, tassa drumming and a Carnival presentation.

“Needless to say, we mash up the place. At the World Trade Market, I felt an overwhelming sense of pride in recognising the very best of TT on this significant global platform, and once again my passion for my culture and my heritage were reignited, not that it needed reigniting,” she said.

Asked whether she was consciously promoting TT when she kept referring to this country when speaking on Project Runway, Ayoung Chee said “it was all natural to me”.

“It wasn’t strategic, it made sense every time. It would inspire me during my challenges. The Caribbean is very much ingrained in me and I don’t think that as effective as it was to mention where I’m from many times, it was never contrived,” she said.

While speaking, Ayoung Chee became emotional when she said she had no idea so many people throughout the Caribbean were cheering her on, adding she did not know so many people would be interested. She said the finale of Project Runway was the sum of all the experiences in her life, since as a young girl she was always fascinated with fashion magazines. “I cut and pinned the hems of my dresses, turned my outfits inside out, constantly recreating my look,” she said.

However, after graduating from Parsons School of Design in New York and St Martins School of Art and Design in London, the young designer admitted to feeling lost, until she got her first job as a graphics designer in New York.

However, two years later, after her brother, Pilar died, she was again left at loose ends. Then came Miss TT and the sex tape scandal that tore her family apart. But she said she has risen once again.

She confirmed she was giving half of her $10,000 fan favourite prize money from Project Runway to co-contestant Anthony Ryan for his cancer research foundation. The other half she will be donating to a micro-finance launch programme.

“I want this programme to be accompanied by an effective mentorship programme and I call on the established designers, musicians, film-makers and other creatives to join me in building this programme. I am appealing to the private sector and Government to support this initiative.”

She said she would be launching a section in a “popular band” before Carnival, but declined to name the band.