Ethno Fashion Show

Alliance Française and Goethe-Institut organised an Ethno Fashion Show on 7June to mark the anniversary of the Franco-German Élysée Treaty. To celebrate the occasion, Alliance Française and Goethe-Institut organised a Hip-Hop Dance event last year. This time around they put together a workshop titled the Ethno-Fashion Workshop followed by the Ethno Fashion Show.

The workshop was conducted by Michel Sontag from Germany, Sakina M'Sa from France and Bibi Russel from Bangladesh; the participants were ten young and aspiring fashion designers hailing from varying backgrounds, some having studied or studying fashion designing, some with a diploma in the field and some from completely different disciplines, but all of them had one thing in common, their passion for fashion and style.

The first day of the fashion show saw Professor AAMS Arefin Siddique, Vice Chancellor, University of Dhaka, Michel Trinquier, French Ambassador to Bangladesh, Dr Ralf Reusch, Charge de Affaires of the German Embassy, and the Director of Alliance Française, Olivier Litvine in attendance.

The young participants at the workshop were Nazia Afroz, Iffat Ara, Rubiaya Haque Raka, Homaira Hasin Sadia, Tasmit Afiyat Arny, Kehkasha Saba, Sifat Zaman, Yaana Nuzhat, Jarin Tasnim Ona and Md Hanif Kaiser.

A number of the participants' designs, which were guided by the three designers, where showcased at the fashion show. The designs were mainly western, although all made use of Bangladeshi fabrics, courtesy of Aarong.

The show started with an orange dress which sort of looked like a cross between a poncho and a kaftan and gave off a summery feel followed by a yellow off-shoulder wrap top and skirt. This was followed by a men's short panjabi in beige topped with a sleeveless jacket and pink trousers. The rest of the men's collection was quite bold with a baby pink and magenta checkered shirt and magenta trousers and another one with a jungle green see-through, full sleeved shirt and pajama among others.

The collection saw many dresses both short and flirty and long and elegant; a few of these included a short blue sleeveless dress, a long beige dress with a high collar, red-piping and red wooden buttons along the chest much like a kurta, a pink dress with the front cut short and the back flowing out and around.

“My fascination for fashion designing was instilled by my mother and the inspiration for coming to this workshop was the big names associated with this workshop," said Yaana Nuzhat, one of the participants. “The idea behind my beige dress with the touch of red was to make a standard and comfortable dress for summer using local cotton” she added.

Tasmit Afiat Arny, another participant, is currently a student of Graphic Designs at the Institute of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka, and has a great passion for fashion designing and hopes to someday make a name for herself in the industry.

“Both my designs were for casual wear. We prefer western outfits even though they are mostly imported. We are perfectly capable of designing stylish western-wear, made exclusively from Bangladeshi fabrics,” said Arny.

The first instalment of the fashion show was followed by two more showcases at Alliance Francaise, Dhaka the next day and the Alliance Française, Chittagong on 10 June, 2013.