Fashion Forward Season Three Opens

Further Support for Local Designers Through Commercial Partnerships and Mentoring Sessions

Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 9th April, 2014 – As Fashion Forward (FFWD) opens its doors for the third season this weekend, the local designers involved can enjoy even further support and success through a series of commercial partnerships. FFWD bolsters its commitment to nurturing the brightest design talent by providing exclusive commercial opportunities with Eureeca and Galeries Lafayette, as well as facilitating mentorship programmes with Swarovski and Azza Fahmy.

“Making a collection a commercial success is, of course, the aim for any designer,” said Bong Guerrero, Founder and CEO of Fashion Forward. “It is important for us to help the designers not only showcase their pieces on the runway or in The Garden, but to also help them translate this to sales afterwards. In order to help this process we have introduced partnerships with crowdinvesting site eureeca.com to enable designers to raise funding for their growth and scale, and with Galeries Lafayette to offer physical retail space for the designers in a prime location. We are also offering our accessories designers the chance to receive personal mentorship sessions with the Swarovski and Azza Fahmy teams. FFWD will continue to find new and fruitful ways of helping our designers get the recognition and success they deserve,” added Guerrero.

Eureeca.com is a crowdinvesting platform where growth businesses can launch funding campaigns to raise money from a crowd of investors in exchange for shares in their business; effectively where a pool of investors come together to invest in a business. In partnership with FFWD, designers who are looking for their next stage of growth can apply to be selected to launch a crowdinvesting campaign. Eureeca will provide mentorship and 1:1 clinics with selected designers to help them launch their campaign.

“Our partnership with FFWD showcases the growth of the fashion and accessories industry as a powerful contributor to the local and international economies,” said Chris Thomas, CEO & Co-Founder Eureeca. “The designers are businesses that need and deserve funding to continue growing, creating jobs and contributing to the growth of the sector. We look forward to having many businesses as part of FFWD launch crowdinvesting campaigns through Eureeca."

Galeries Lafayette is offering a fantastic opportunity for the FFWD designers to have a physical retail space in their Dubai Mall location. Key buyers will attend all runway shows and The Garden, carefully assessing each collection with a view to offering retail space in store. This is a unique opportunity for our designers to have their pieces available for purchase, giving them visibility in a prime retail space.

“For Galeries Lafayette, the aim is to demonstrate the importance of installing faith and encouragement in young designers and to enable them to demonstrate their ability to create fresh and unique fashion collections,” said Etienne Roy the Chief Operating Officer of Galeries Lafayette. “We hope the collaboration with Fashion Forward will provide the designers with the exposure that they deserve, while simultaneously offering Dubai’s fashion enthusiasts the chance to view contemporary, cutting edge styles and designs, which otherwise might not have been seen throughout the region”.

As well as promoting their commercial endeavours, FFWD continues to support designers with their creative and business development. By partnering with Swarovski and Azza Fahmy, FFWD is offering accessories designers who are showing in The Garden to receive invaluable one on one mentoring throughout the event.

This season The Garden will house over 70 local accessories designers from across the region, and opens its doors to the public tomorrow, the 11th April from 12pm.

Swarovski has invited six stellar designers from The Garden to work closely with their creative team in order to create a sparkling capsule collection especially for Fashion Forward. These pieces will be showcased at The Garden for public and buyers to browse and purchase.

Andrew Mojica, Managing Director of Swarovski Professional, underlined that this latest Swarovski initiative demonstrates the company’s commitment to supporting designers within the region, as well as providing a platform for the modern interpretation of crystals.

“Swarovski is proud to partner with these contemporary accessory designers and continue one of the company’s most treasured traditions. The philosophy of working with new design talent has permeated every aspect of this family run company since it was founded in 1895,” he said. “The initiative is also closely allied with Swarovski’s long history of creative collaboration with the most prestigious names in the fashion industry, some of which date back to the early 20th century.”

The team from Azza Fahmy will be carefully assessing each designer from The Garden and will hand-pick 10-15 to mentor throughout the event. These designers will be given dedicated times over the next three days to meet with the team and discuss their business strategy and creative ideas – gaining advice from the talented creative team behind the acclaimed accessories brand.

"Creative people may find it difficult to focus on the business development aspect of their brand,” said Fatma Ghaly, Managing Director, Azza Fahmy Jewellery. “We at Azza Fahmy Jewellery have worked very hard to create a healthy balance between the two. Sharing our experiences and offering constructive advice is our goal this season.”

Fashion Forward Opens tomorrow, April 10th, for an industry lunch hosted by Dubai Design District (d3) and from 11th to the public and trade who can enjoy 18 catwalk shows, the “d3 Fashion Talks” and networking opportunities throughout the three days.

For the full schedule and for more information please visit www.fashionforward.ae