The St Lucia-based ASX Modeles Agency has launched a chapter in Guyana and Debra Allen, Fashion Designer and owner of the brand, promises to raise the standards of modelling in Guyana to the place where our models can excel internationally.
During the agency’s launch at the Upscale Restaurant late last month, several Guyanese models with varying levels of experience took to the catwalk to show off all they would have learned after six months of training under Debra.
In addition to the launch of the Fashion Agency, Debra also launched ASX Perfection Event Planning company, and Dimension Marketing Advertising Agency, although not much emphasis was placed on these.
The positive reactions from many of the onlookers who packed the restaurant to get a glimpse of what the Fashion Agency has to offer suggested that whatever the models were taught during the six month training period paid off.
In addition to poise and grace, confidence was constant in each of the models. This was so it turns out because confidence building is one of the areas Debra focuses on the most.
Twenty-three-year-old Teshina Marcus who has been modelling for just six months said Debra has helped her and many other young ladies to gain a considerable confidence boost.
Ruschell Gittens, 25, who has been modelling for 5 years, said that her self-esteem has definitely been improved, therefore enabling her to approach modelling, and life in general, with much more confidence. Both of the young ladies were fearless as they traversed the catwalk.
Russell Lancaster, well known for his singing and acting, praised the girls’ ability to gracefully strut up and down the catwalk with four and five inch heels. Giving his two cents on what he observed, Russell said, “some of them are definitely model material,” although he said that much more work if they were to compete on the “brutal” international modeling agency.
Local theatre personality Collette Jones-Chin also relished the fact that girls on display were not the usual “run-of-the-mill” models. She said that Guyanese girls, once properly groomed, offer a pleasant break from, the clichéd light-skinned, long-haired girls that usually dominate the modelling world.
Aside from the girls however, the pieces they modelled also seemed to be well received by the audience. Debra’s negligee line in particular was so raunchy that several onlookers, male and female, felt compelled to leave their seats to get a better view of all that was on display.
For the four or five minutes the models prowled up and down the catwalk, oohs, aahs and camera flashes were in no short supply.
Despite the fact that some of the pieces left very little to the imagination, none of the young women hesitated to do what they had been taught to do – model.
Debra explained that this training will be built on, and each model that comes under ASX will be instructed in a similar fashion.
She is also incredibly ambitious and said that after Guyana, she intends to launch a new agency in every major Caribbean country every year. After this, she said, she plans to make her entrance in New York, and not too long after, France, the fashion capital of the world. By this time, she said, she would have established in the Caribbean and New York.
