Page 13 - ARUBA TODAY

A13
Tuesday 5 december 2017

Local Designer Rhona Lemminga Shines at Aruba Fashion Week

By LUIS VILLEGAS
ORANJESTAD – Aruba’s Fashion Week brought World Class & Emerging Designers, Inter-
national Media, Local Talents & Culture, Artists, Musicians, Fashionistas, fashion bloggers
& editors, Global & Local Celebrities and Elite Travelers from all over the world to the
island last weekend. Aruba Today had a talk with one of the local designer, Rhona Lem-
minga, and shows you a selection of pictures taken throughout the 3-days event.

Friday was the opening at the Marriott Resort & Stellaris Casino from 6 pm on. Carmen
Steffens from Brazil, Rhona Lemminga from Aruba, Karma by Marcia Arocha from Miami
and Agatha Ruiz de le Prada from Spain showed their collections. The Renaissance
Aruba Resort & Casino hosted the second fashion day with the following lineup: Perla
Negra, Faddy Castro, Raisha Prianti, Yekas and Masterpiece, all from Venezuela. The
last day The Ritz-Carlton, Aruba facilitated the Fashion Talks Conference from 1 pm.
Later that day, from 6 pm, the Renaissance Marketplace turned their pier into a catwalk
where designers Hernan Zajar and Juliana Florez from Colombia, Elisa Lejuez from Aru-
ba, Jo Aguirre from Venezuela and Labellamafia from Brazil showed their collections.

Get Out There
Lemminga is also in charge of the fashion department of the local EPB School and she
sure did enjoy the Fashion Week. She hopes the event will continue every year as it
gives the public the opportunity to enjoy fashion from abroad as well as local designs.
She helped the organization to find local designers, but that was not that easy. “We do
have talents that can measure themselves with international designers, but there is the
lack of confidence to participate in an event like this.” She emphasizes the importance
to show your talent out there, because by staying home you will win nothing. Six of her
students are interested in being fashion designers and therefore she invited them to be
part of her team during the Fashion Week. Chantal Conradus, one of the students: “I
dreamt of being a fashion designer since I was young and I painted my clothes already
with different designs. When I heard that EPB has a fashion department I registered im-
mediately. Of course I would love to participate in an event like this one day.” Her fa-
vorite designers of the event were Agatha Ruiz de la Prada and of course, her teacher
Lemminga.
Comments from the audience were enthusiastic and especially the local designers
were praised for their collections. There were also remarks on how thin some of the
models were. “They should change this worldwide as this is a bad example for young
girls that think this is the only beauty standard, but it is not.”q