Eleven years after her pioneering introduction of a range of clothing and fabric from West Africa on the local market Designer and Businesswoman Anetha Eastman is still seeking the commercial space which she has more than earned for her game-changing contribution to the African Guyanese clothing culture. Her fabrics as much as her finished clothing are, on the whole, a ‘cut above’ much of that which is likely to be found anywhere else in the local commercial mainstream and what she has to offer is easily attractive to the discerning eye.
If there is a limitation to her enterprise it lies in the challenge of effective marketing, the fine fabrics and male and female apparel which her brand Anetha’s Elegance offers deserving of far more elaborate marketing than they are afforded at this time.
Almost a year ago, when this writer took a visiting Jamaican academic to Anetha’s cramped Robb Street shop inside The Courtyard Mall his comment at the end of a twenty-minute stay was profound and to the point. “More people should see what this woman is offering,” he declared, his remark an unmistakable comment on the dichotomy between the range and beauty of what she has to offer and the inadequacy of the cramped space in which it is stored rather than displayed.
