Y ODA (Young Designers Arena) has done a lot in helping the up-and-coming young Malaysian designers to start getting recognition and building names for themselves in our local fashion scene. YODA provides platforms to promote not only fashion designers but makeup artist & hairdo artist as well.
Still on their mission,YODA held a fashion show of collections by four young designers at Fahrenheit 88 in August. Keeping the tagline ‘Giving tomorrow fashion a stage today’ in check, the eighties-themed event introduced us to Marlee Shariff, Yamz, Fashion Geek, Zulfadli Nasir and Farliz. Although still very young and fresh, some of their designs didn’t disappoint at all. Yes, they still have a long way to go but they managed to deliver four quite impressive RTW collections and mind you it is not an easy feat. With so many design-college graduates out there, the competition is very strong. They just need to find their very own identity to separate themselves from others.
As for the event, it was very laid-back. Not all of the attendees dressed up according to the eighties theme, but it was great to see established designers like Bon Zainal and Azmeer supporting these ‘new kids on the block’. Male super-model Wilson Tan was in one corner talking to his fellow model friends and I was on the other side with model/socialite; Stephanie Liah discussing the looks on each models while snapping away with our cameras.
These young designers gave us a lot of varieties with their collections. There were some seventies-inspired print tops, animal-print jumpsuit, primary colored resort-style cover ups as well as some bold-colored suit. Nothing too fancy but definitely not too bad for a start.
So if you hear names like Marlee Shariff, Yamz, Fashion Geek, Zulfadli Nasir and Farliz in the future, remember YODA discovered them and you heard about them hear first at Emmagem!
