Fashion Festival To Showcase Plus Size Designs

“Who says plus size can’t be sexy, luxurious and feminine,” says Monif Clarke, a designer specializing in plus size fashions who is set to be featured at next month’s Bermuda Fashion Festival.

“Nothing could be more fitting for Bermuda’s Premier Fashion Week than Monif C’s Plus Size fashion collection. This Bajan designer’s website hits you with bold, bright colour reflecting her Island Fever collection,” the City said.

“Audiences of the Bermuda Fashion Festival’s International Designer Show on July 12th will be treated to this holiday couture and can delight in the sexy confidence of Monif’s plus size models.”

Speaking on her collection, Monif C, who is of Barbadian descent and based in New York, said, “It’s vacation time, time to get away and have fun.

“The Island Fever collection is about getting away; it’s about all those fantastic colour pieces that you want to take with you on vacation and staycations. Bermuda celebrates its own Carnival and Cup Match when we feel that ‘island fever’, in all of the islands.”

She explains, “Bermuda Fashion Festival audiences can anticipate a really fantastic resort collection concentrated around our swimwear collection, which has really taken off.”

The brand is celebrating “A Decade of Curves,” having started 11 years ago in September, and Monif C has played a pivotal role in transforming the plus size fashion industry, having began designing because, as a plus size woman, she wasn’t happy with the fashion choices available to her.

“When I first started, the industry was very much about how do we camouflage these bodies and give these women something that keeps their look ‘safe’. I didn’t believe that was what women wanted – it was as if the industry had made a collective decision for their customers,” she said.

“A pink printed dress was revolutionary back then. We were really pushing the dresses because plus size women didn’t have access to body conscious dressing back then. I look back at it and its tame compared to what we do now!”

“We innovated the industry; we broke the mold as to what people think plus size women can wear. It’s great that the industry has taken off. An expansion of the industry means that more women have more access to sexy, elegant and luxurious fashion.”

Of the Bermuda plus size fashion market, Monif C says, “Women in Bermuda are extraordinarily stylish.

“When I did my first fashion show here, I saw that this is a market that gets it. Of all my customers across the globe, including clients in Australia, UK and all the Caribbean, two of my top customers come from Bermuda.”

Monif C has has dressed a slew of well known celebrities, including Jennifer Hudson, Sherri Shepherd, Queen Latifah, and Jill Scott.

The Bermuda Fashion Festival, produced by the City of Hamilton, is July 10 – 16 and includes designer pop-up shops and a trunk show, hosted in various Hamilton locations. Attracting international designers, models, celebrities and media from the US, Caribbean, UK and Australia, Bermuda Fashion Festival is in its 7th year.

Tickets are selling now from ptix.bm/bff and from City Hall offices. The schedule of the full week can be seen at bermudafashionfestival.com/eventspage

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