At 34, Sharon Gittens appears preoccupied with finding her place in the world of local fashion design where, so often, talent is held in harness as much by lack of opportunity as by what she believes is the high cost of staying in the race for the attention of a modest market.
Trusted Choice, the name of the business establishment which she has created on Laing Avenue is still some distance away from the status of a high street fashion designer’s clothing and jewellery outlet, but then that is no different to what her colleagues in the profession have to endure. In the world of fashion in Guyana only the ‘big names’ seem to get any real attention.
Sharon says that her “creative skills” were probably “always there” and that these had been sharpened under the tutelage of Deryck Moore and brought to public attention through excursions into the limelight by way of her participation in Guyana Fashion Week 2010 and in, that same year, putting a band ‘on the road’ for Mashramani.
She’d love to do more she says but then the reality is that participating in a “show” can cost the designer $60,000 to $80,000 in participation fees alone, apart from which there is the cost of preparation. The problem, she says, is that even after you make such an investment, you can never be sure that the market will even allow you to break even.
If elsewhere in the region and beyond the fashion industry has mushroomed into a multi-billion dollar enterprise, Sharon believes that over the years there has been less than adequate investment in the sector locally. However, there is much more to remaining in the public eye and transforming her creations in
