Every Little Thing #10

Style Week welcomes 7th Avenue
Social
BY MICHAEL EDWARDS Entertainment editor
Sunday, May 28, 2006

"THE world doesn't need another pretty dress."
With that observation, Carmela Spinelli-Schaufler, Associate chair of New York's Parsons School of Design has mapped
out the future direction of the fashion industry - for the world in general but for Jamaica in particular.

The undergraduate fashion design programme of athe Parsons School takes about 480 students. Less than 100 will actually
walk out with that coveted piece of paper.
"Our requirement is that our students actually solve problems, rather than simply making outfits," she says as we endure
the mid-afternoon heat by the poolside of the Jamaica Pegasus. "Talent is important, obviously, but its by no means enough.
This industry is so multi-faceted today and our students are expected to go beyond just making a dress."

Schaufler is here, along with Beth Charleston of parsons and freelance fashion writer David Noh to take part in the annual
Style Week extravaganza hosted by Saint International.

It was Beth who first received the notice of the event and then busied herself on the Internet checking facts about Jamaica,
about fashion and about Style Week.

"This sounded like something really interesting and something which we hadn't been getting much information on at all in
New York," Beth said.

"Right away, you know the light and thus the colours are different," Carmela agrees. "We want to see how that impacts the
design ideas, but more than that we want to see also the impact of the whole culture, the lifestyle, the tastes and smells,
on the design and the style."

For Hawaiian David Noh (who is covering Style Jamaica for fashionwire), the most welcome aspect is to experience diversity
of a different nature than what he has become accustomed to in the fashion capital.

"Even in a place like New York, things can become kind of gray after a while. Here, you have the natural beauty, the
diversity and the strength of the culture, which is your own natural resource."