Nine of Barbados' leading designers presented their fashion collections on Friday night as part of a Government-supported initiative which Mottley said was intended to give Government an idea of what needed to be done to unleash the full international potential of the industry.

Addressing the large audience at the Concorde Experience for Barbados Winter Sun Collection 2007/2008, Mottley said the decision was made to finance the production of the portfolio by some of Barbados' best talent to allow Government to make "an honest and impartial assessment" of where the local designers are, where they need to go and what Government needed to do to put them on that trajectory.

Barbados Fashion Portfolio featured collections by Antonio Cumberbatch, Cindy Mayers, Rosca McDonald, Pat Brathwaite, Catherine Balgobin, Pauline Belllamy, Simon/Peter, Roland Bascombe, and Mark and Ava Daniel.

Carol Cadogan-Fox was the project consultant to the Barbados Investment & Development Corporation, Invest Barbados, and producer
of Friday night's show. She said she looked forward to seeing the designers sign on with overseas retailers to start the flow of Barbadian fashion to international markets.

To this end some experts from the international world of fashion were specially invited to view the Barbados fashion portfolio.

One of them, Bobby Hilson-Cunningham, founder of the renowned MA fashion degree course at St Martins (now Central St Martins) School of Art in London, said the designs shown were excellent and she felt Barbadian designers had international potential.

The other international fashion experts invited to view the show were Audrey Smaltz – a former hostess and commentator for Ebony Fashion Fair – now owner of the fashion house Ground Crew, Sharon Ridoynauth, a fashion editor at Style Magazine, British fashion agents Lisa Williams and Sharon Beatty and New York clothing designer Les Francis. (GC)