Can Maldives have its own fashion labels?

By Hilath Rasheed

"Why not? Maldives can create its own fashions appropriate to the country’s hot climate and culture," says a prominent Indian fashion school official.

"There is great potential for Maldives to develop its own (fashion) labels," says Nealesh Dalal, overseas director of India’s exclusively fashion-oriented JD Institute of fashion Technology.Dalal’s sentiments are echoed by some young people here.

"We can have our own unique Dhivehi labels such as ‘Hiyala’ or ‘Faiymini,’" says Aishath, who is trying to enrol at a Malaysian fashion school.

But that would mean that first, Maldives has to have its own unique fashions designed.

Not many options are available for young people who want to pursue fashion designing studies. Certainly, New York or Paris seems a far dream for cash-strapped Maldivians and their only choice remains affordable— and easily accessible — fashion institutes from around the region.Sri Lanka, India, and Malaysia seem likely choices.

Some fashion schools in fact represent themselves in education fairs in Maldives hoping to attract Maldives students to pursue fashion studies overseas, among them Malaysia’s highly technical Limkokwing Institute of Creative Technology.

Dalal recently visited Maldives and held a round of meetings with prospective students who might want to enrol at JD Institute; some 10 Maldives students signed up with the institute’s diploma in fashion designing programme.

"The package is quite attractive," says an applicant, who declined to be named. "Their whole package inclusive of tuition fees, accommodation and food amounts to only about US$2,750."

Dalal says that the candidates he met here demonstrated creativity and could possibly one day lead to Maldives having its own fashion labels.

"There is a ready market here. For instance, beach wear will be in great demand by tourists," he says.

An obstacle to an otherwise attractive profession is the fact that some conservative-minded parents do not see fashion designing as a profession at all. They do not see fashion designing as one that has either a future or career.

"It took months to convince my parents to send me to fashion school," says a girl who wished to remain anonymous.

"In the end, they consented, but I am not sure whether they are still convinced that this line of work has a future for me."

The obstacles for guys are more; most parents deem fashion designing as a "feminine" profession and therefore not appropriate for their sons.

"I still haven’t been able to convince my parents that this is as much a guy’s profession as a girl’s," says Ahmed, whose parents are pressuring him to pursue high studies in either accounting or information technology.

If only parents could be made to understand that some of the greatest minds behind world renown labels such as Versace and Jean Paul Gaultier are men.

(This article was published in Haveeru Daily on 6 April 2002)