Left: Pulse CEO Kingsley Cooper.   Right: A model wears a yardmanstyle design at Caribbean Fashion Week Fashion Shows, held at the National Indoor Sports Centre, Independence Park, Arthur Wint Drive on Saturday June 10.

What are some of the challenges faced?

Lack of funding. Government needs to facilitate a venture fund for the creative industries. It need not be taxpayers' money, just a set of incentives that will encourage private sector investment. Grant funding is sometimes available, but this is usually somewhere between difficult and impossible for small business persons to access. Where it is possible to obtain these funds, the conditionalities usually mean that they cannot be used to fund what is most needed. Deals with money partners are another option, although this is often the source of their own special set of challenges. Bank funding is probably the last resort, unless the entity is well organised with a clear, immediate and sufficient income stream.

Lack of fabrics and technical/manufacturing capability, reliable, consistent and quality fabric supply at viable prices has been a big problem for Jamaican designers as long as I can remember. This was certainly the case in my time as a partner in Sandra Kennedy's CHAD line in the early 1980s. For designers then, products were rarely the same as the samples and orders were difficult to fill. Another long-standing problem is the fact that manufacturing capacity still is often not in place. At the end of the day, we might all have to manufacture in China, if we are to compete. That is not as bad an idea as it might sound to some. Almost all the world's major designers do and they reap tremendous value added - the price (above the cost of production) paid by consumers for their creative skills and marketing savvy. We have the culture and the product that the world wants. Yes, we need to market and promote, but you can't sell what you can't produce.

Every year at CFW there are empty booths - booths that are provided to our designers at great expense. There has to be a place for designers to meet press and buyers. Yet many designers end up missing out, designers who specifically requested booths and then became no shows. Yes, these are the same designers who complain about an insufficiency of buyers. So many buyers have been turned off over the years by the absence of designers so that, for each renewal of CFW, it's more than a challenge getting them to come back. This even applies to buyers from our local resorts, boutiques and department stores, which we target aggressively. After all, they are right here in Jamaica and would have no reason not to come.

So designers, if you are not present, buyers will not be present. And you have to be present first. This is just an example of the lack of marketing savvy among several of our designers. If we can't build CFW as a place where Jamaicans actually develop relationships and do business, when everything is already laid out, how will we succeed? Certainly, there are many who do well at CFW - ask the Bajans, but our Jamaican designers need to do much better. Also, although CFW is ideal for our designers (it happens here and provides multi-faceted opportunities), it is just one way of marketing. It should be used to the fullest, but also supplemented by our designers' own independent initiatives.

The need to respond to the actual market.

Too much hype with too little reality will get us nowhere. There is no point hyping if you have nothing to sell. On another note, does the world look to Jamaica for couture? I think not. However, it is a fact that within our islands our top end designers do have a market. Many of our people want to dress like Paris, but can't afford Paris. That's where the beautiful pieces from Uzuri, for example, come in. However, any designer thinking of mass sales and major income must look beyond the market for locals and reflect the culture of the Caribbean in their designs, fabrics and colours. Biggy, Catch a Fire and the young Mosiah come readily to mind. Designers must also be able to seriously export, with all that this implies. Also, what about the 10 million tourists who visit the Caribbean each year? Don't they want something to take back home with them? So many of designers could successfully sell to this market and grow their production as warranted over time. We need to produce more resort wear at affordable prices.

Once we recognise and fully come to terms with the challenges mentioned above, our success, on a scale previously unimagined, is guaranteed. But do we have the will and commitment that is needed across the board, to see it through? Government must take the lead and play a crucial role in making this happen. The small players in the industry just do not have the resources - in some cases, not even to write business plans.

Although cash is always critical, Government can effect policy that will play a pivotal role in moving this industry forward, without any significant cost to taxpayers.