Miami Beach International Fashion Week celebrates its largest event to date at the Miami Beach Convention Center.This year’s presenting sponsor was Moroccanoil, and participating sponsors included Goya Foods, Equinox, Stella Artois, Copa Airlines, Barefoot Bubbly, Icelandic Glacier and Yahoo! Hispanic Americas.
Fashion week was the largest to date, showcasing 60 designers from 22 countries, hosting seminars for the fashion industry, providing live music performances each evening, announcing the designers and student competition winners, and introducing the top chef’s in the VIP Culinary Style Café. These chef’s included; Casa D’Angelo’s Angelo Elia, Ceterplate’s Jonathan Barnett, Baru Urbano’s Alberto Bogado, Goya Foods Fernando Desa.
Opening night of this prominent fashion event started with the Lingerie and Swimwear Showcase. Designers included Zella Machado, Eugene Jones, Kanomi, Sambarela, De Lancret, and MaddSexy Lingerie revealing some of their most ravishing pieces down the runway. Opening Prelude also took stage with emerging designers; Somy Ali, GooRoo Baby, Erin Healy, Arefeh Mansouri, Zula Khramov, Art of Shade and Cesar Rosario as they showcased their elegant collections. The evening closed with the Miami Style Showcase featuring Miami’s top designers Julian Chang, Petit Pois by Viviana G., Samy Gitcherman and Nicolas Felizola.
The second evening continued with success on the runway as Jamaica took center stage featuring designers POSHE by Camesha Powell, Julan by Juliette Dyke, and the Jamaican Collective, also making their appearance on the runway was Jamaica's Mission Catwalk designer competition finalists, Shenna Carby and Ayanna Dixon. The Caribbean designers featured an array of colorful designs. The Men’s Showcase for
the evening featured Mauricio Alberino, Robert Flores, Bata Spasojevic and the internationally known brand Girbaud. The night closed with a luxurious International Eveningwear Showcase featuring elegant collections by Rocky Gathercole - Dubai, Franco Montoro - Venezuela, Patuna Bushyhead – Republic of Georgia, Damaris Rubio – Dominican Republic, and Baron Levon Siamanto - USA.
Saturday evening, Boston Proper along with LUXXE Collections, Mariela Allaix, Marina Makaron, showcased their eccentric and ready to wear apparel in the Prêt-A-Porter Style Showcase. Following was sponsor, Copa Airlines Showcase. This runway extravaganza showcased designers from Latin America including Eduardo Gonzalez - Colombia, Caludia Bertolero - Peru, Federico Visuetti - Panama, Giovanni Scutaro -
Venezuela and Marcelo Quadros - Brazil. The Latin inspired evening concluded with the Latin Fashion Council Showcase featuring emerging designers Blue Island by Madelaine Morel, Paulina Anda, Ana Carolina Valencia, and Paulina Bedoya.
The final evening of this year’s Miami Beach International Fashion Week was hosted by television and radio hosts Brian Andrews and Ileana Garcia. It included the designer’s awards presented by Tiffany & Co., an excerpt of Swan Lake performed by the senior students of the Miami City Ballet Academy and a special runway event, “Black Swan by Miami Designers”.
The following designers were honored with a Tiffany & Co crystal award during the Miami Moda and Music Awards Sunday evening; International Rising Star Bata Spasojevic from Serbia, Mariela Allaix from Argentina for the Prêt-A-Porter Style Award, Giovanni Scutaro from Venezuela for the Excellence in Eveningwear Award, Mauricio Alberino from Italy for the Men’s Style Award, Marcelo Quadros from Brazil for the Victoria Puig de Lang International Style Award, Sviatlana for the Top Model of the Year Award, Dafne from France for the Tiffany Jewelry Design Award and taking home the Designers Choice Award was Florida native, Art of Shade.
Other awarded recipients at the 2011 Miami Beach International Fashion Week included Miami Fashion Week Foundation’s competition winners. The students and emerging designer who were awarded include; Martha Landry from the USA, Javier Topete from Mexico, Nicola Ferguson from Wales, Rachael Lee Yen Yii from Malaysia, Maria Hamilton from the USA and Onder Ozdak from Turkey.
“Being back in Miami Beach was the perfect way to celebrate this year’s fashion week,” says Beth Sobol, president and founder of Miami Beach International Fashion Week. “Alongside my managing partner, Aaron Perry, we would like to thank all of this year’s participants including our special guests, sponsors, designers, models, international press and volunteers for making this event truly memorable.”
Sobol-Perry Fashion Productions Inc. looks to expand in 2011 with additional fashion events and a trade show component that will soon be introduced into Miami Beach International Fashion Week.
