Tongue in Chic - Do You Agree With Dzireena Mahadzir? We Do.

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Do You Agree With Dzireena Mahadzir? We Do.

Filed In News by joyce | Comments: 7 | Views: 302

Dzireena Mahadzir writes a column called Sense of Style for The Star, and last Sunday, she questioned why Malaysia doesn't have a body that coordinates fashion events. Some quotes from her article:

"For some strange reason, everyone decided to schedule ALL their events the moment fasting month ended. One of my best friends said she hasn’t slept since October, and that goes for me too. Another friend was saying that sleep has become such a luxury. I don’t know how socialites do this, but I’m exhausted."

She's absolutely right. Fasting month is like 'rest period' for us. And the moment Hari Raya is over, BOOM, there are fashion events clashing atop one another to the point we schedule the nights by hour. MIFW last week really took its toll on TiC and I'm really sorry posts having been going up to cover everything as in depth as we planned to. We've slowly been having a "(wo)man down" situation with everyone getting sick one after the other.

"We should have a proper KL Fashion week, not several different fashion events rotating the same designers, same collections and handing out self-congratulatory awards to people who may or may not have contributed anything of significance to the industry beyond appearing in pretty clothes in society magazines or just for being someone’s friend.

And no one person should try to control or dominate the industry either. Everyone should put their egos aside and work together. Why can’t we be like Bangkok, Jakarta and Singapore?"

I wholly agree. Last week alone was Islamic Fashion Festival. MIFW, and a Stylo event. I know Stylo has their fashion week in conjunction with F1 in Malaysia and Singapore, so it seemed quite unnecessary when they HAD to throw a Stylo X event out of the blue on the very same night as KL Six at MIFW on Friday. Unnecessary or intentional?

Everyone in the fashion industry knows of the flying fur between Syeba Yip (who organises MIFW) and Nancy Yeoh (who organises Stylo), but to clash two major fashion events on the same night, causing all the designers and industry people to rush from one to the other or being torn between the two? Ridiculous.

Do read Dzireena's article here. What are your thoughts about it? Do you think Malaysia can actually form some sort of committee to schedule fashion events for a year? Or do you think too much fake fur will go flying and sequins being scratched? I'm curious to know whether anyone else feels the same.

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7 COMMENTS

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yes!im agree with her..

we should have only one major fashion week..

and it takes a lot of guts to have styloX event while MIFA celebrated the GALA..how disappointed.

thanks to dzireena for this article. she totally have the point!

Posted by aizat.cinta.goddess on 02 December

that's the thing about malaysians. the only time we ever come together is to steal each other's resources, and once we get past the obligatory air kisses, our egos get the better of us and we're off to start our own thing. why? because we can. i'm all for both stylo and mifa, but seriously...?? moda was first, and then came mifa, and then two yrs back there were TWO fashion weeks, so people had to rush between attending shows at KLCC and Avenue K within the same few days. It's bad enough the local fashion industry is suffering, should we be recycling the handful of tired designers currently in the scene? do the general public even WANT to see the same damn garments walking on an already bland runway???

save the industry. if the people behind fashion are not even working together, how are we designers going to survive? we're all looking up to them for guidance, but their clashing egos overlook the fact that we need them.

Posted by eleanor on 02 December

ONE committee? Are some of the egos here prepared to relinquish that "responsibility" to someone truly capable? We had 3-4 "fashion weeks" in KL alone last year (or was it this year too?) run by different organisers! As long as the designers continue to participate in all if not most of them, what are the odds that we'd only see 2 shows per year (S/S and A/W) under 1 organiser?

Could this perhaps be a job for Matrade and/ or Tourism Malaysia?

Posted by Evevon on 02 December

it's good that matrade has finally stepped in for mifw, and i hope that'll bring a serious change in the organisation of such events. tourism malaysia doesnt seem to be doing their part in even creating the hype around fashion week. and on a non-committee related issue, i picked up a malay newspaper recently covering fashion week, but what a coincidence that all the chinese designers involved in the entire fashion week was either photoshopped out of pictures or just not mentioned at all. if this is how we support our local talents, i want nothing to do with it.

Posted by eleanor on 02 December

you will never have a committee running this event properly as they are all somebody's friend and out to make money. If you notice, this year's MIFA was as badly managed as the past year's. There were only 5 international buyers present!! What a joke!

And the show was atrocious! Look at the cheap runway design and setup! Screw ups at registration counter as well and then let's not forget the "socialites" who do absolutely nothing for the industry except mingle with themselves and give prizes to their friends who don't need the money. So much for helping the Malaysian Fashion Industry.

Stylo X i totally agree was unecessary and most people i saw there had nothing to do with the fashion industry! Its a joke! Everytime I go I see half arsed attempts at these events and the sponsors just keep on lavishing money on these people and they pocket the lion's share.

Not just the designers but the sponsors too must abandon these conjobs.

Which is why, I have started Fashion Up! without sponsorship and connections. I don't know if I'll be able to make a difference and help but I for one am not sitting idly by. Watch and learn guys!

Posted by biresh on 02 December

what we really need now is one committee that handle the fashion weeks in Malaysia.

build one committee that help our designers to market themselves into international scene.

there are more problems on our fashion weeks.

im so going to blog about this!

Posted by aizat.cinta.goddess on 02 December

Agree definitely, me and my friends often discuss about this.

Though we don't have much power or say in this, but honestly, fashion weeks should be co-ordinated well and having varieties to say the least.

I find it ridiculous sometimes to recycle models with the same make up and after doing a designer's show, their make up and hair worstens as they do the next show. I also do notice how young designers or so only get the lesser models.

well not much comment, really hope next year mifw would be better with no clashes. I survived the whole week somehow

Posted by Jon on 03 December

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