Islandistas, do you know what's in style this season?
ISLANDISTAS!
That's what.
Maybe it's just us, but we are definitely seeing changes in the colour of the catwalks of New York Fashion Week. As you would know we have been tracking this for some time and the last season (Fall/Winter 09) definitely looked more colourful than it had in ... ever?
And it seems the trend is continuing. We have been poring through style.com to get an idea of how models of colour are being represented and thus far, we are pleased to report that out of the 32 collections we've reviewed thus far, all but four designers have included models of colour.
The four offenders so far are Preen, William Rast, Lyn Devon and Helmut Lang - though Lang might get a bligh since he only used two models and one was the Asiatic looking Russian Ranya Mordanova.
Anyway, these more colourful catwalks have been a boon to Caribbean models and there are islandistas all over New York Fashion Week. Honestly, we have never seen so many.
And what is interesting is that it is not just the more familiar faces like Arlenis Sosa and Jeneil Williams that we are seeing popping up.
Check out more pics and the info on their island connections after the jump.
There are newcomers like the 17 year old Martiniquan Selina Khan, who has walked for Charlotte Ronson at this NY Fashion Week.
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She came to modelling when her mother urged to try out for a model casting that Elite Model Management was holding on the island two years ago.
With her combination of Chinese features, dark complexion and standard Indian last name, our first guess was that Selina was a Trini or even a Guyanese. But turns out she hails from my favourite island in the French Caribbean, which also has a large Indian population. Her mother is Chinese and her father is Indian.
Another newcomer is 15 year old Jamaican Shena Moulton, who hails from the gritty Kingston ghetto of Waterhouse - the same community as gold medal winning islandista Shelly-ann Fraser.
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She walked for Ports 1961. Big t'ings a gwan for Waterhouse - don't let anybody tell you not!
Other Jamaicans on the catwalk so far at NYFW SS10 are Sigail Currie and Sasha Gaye Hunt who have walked for Elie Tahari and L.A.M.B respectively, so far.
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Both hail from the Saint International roster of models, as does Shena. We tend hear a lot more about Pulse in the Caribbean fashion industry, obviously because they do CFW, but Saint is no slouch, either! They are the ones who are really getting the girls out there on the runways.
By the way, Sasha's name is killing us. For whatever reason, the international pubs keep doing her name as Sasha Gaye-Hunt, as if Gaye-Hunt is her last name. But knowing Jamaicans' overwhelming fondess for -Kaye and -Gaye names (Peta-Gaye, Donna-Kaye, Anna-Gaye etc), we'd be willing to bet our bottom dollar that her name is Sasha-Gaye. But whatever looks more sophisticated...
Another islandista model on the New York runways is Rose Cordero, from the Dominican Republic. She has walked for Jason Wu and Cynthia Rowley thus far. The Jason Wu look is included in the collage up top and the Cynthia Rowley look is below.
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Trinidad's Michelene Auguste was also on the Fashion Week scene, modelling for Alabama Chanin. She signed with IMG last year, according to Trinidad Fashionista. And of course, we can't leave out the top girls - Arlenis and Jeneil. Arlenis has walked for Ruffian, which can be seen in the photo collage up top.
Jeneil has walked in four shows thus far - for Nicole Miller, Arise, Prabal Gurung and Ruffian.
Fantastic stuff, isn't it? And we haven't even gotten into the islandista designers who are showing at NYFW! Look out for that in the next post!
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