Anyone truly interested in this industry can check Guyanese newspapers from the 1950s to 70s and see for themselves not only the staggering beauty of past Guyanese models of every race and racial mixtures, but also some of the most appropriate styles of clothing and tailoring representing and emphasising tropical fashions in Guyana.

Naturally, there is a difference between local fashions back then and now. This difference tells us something about ourselves today in comparison to yesterday. We should look at this difference carefully to see whether it maintained or ushered in a realistic and practical sense of ourselves as tropical nationals.

I should state right away that in terms of beauty, today’s female models are no less beautiful than those in the past; a look at Sisel Moore, Asha Pieters, Olive Gopaul, Morvinia Sobers, Sabrina Arjoon, Jonelle David, Martha Persaud, Thandika Singh, Angelica Fredericks, and many others, is enough to prove this.

What is noticeable, however, is how their choice of hairstyles and clothes may, in fact, limit or inhibit the maximum expression of their talent and beauty. Today’s Guyanese, whether fashion model or not, is far more exposed to ready-made influences than their past colleagues, towards which appreciation and respect should be shown. There were no TV programmes, few fashion magazines and the era of posted barrels and easy foreign travel did not exist, yet a prior home-grown contentment inspired local creativity of such elegance hardly seen today, where no one since Shakira Baksh in the late 1960s has managed to gain third place in the Miss World contests.

A strong awareness of achieving comfort in a hot tropical climate guided prior to local fashion styles more than a desire to identify with hairstyles, fabric patterns, and clothing styles simply because they represented one’s ethnic origin, from wherever that might be.

For example, few Afro-Guyanese girls would have thought of sewing artificial plaits into their hair in past decades, when short, natural cuts emphasised their natural Afro beauty, kept their heads cool and healthy, and when dyed hair looked attractive. Similarly, back then, local fashion models rarely modelled clothing styles traditional to African, Indian, Asian, South American cultures, perhaps because it seemed too ready-made and self-centred, rather than innovative in a distinctly Guyanese sense.

And, in any case, it was difficult to imagine any serious fashion sponsor paying attention to such Guyanese imitations when they could see such styles in all their authenticity and diversity in their original cultural homelands of Africa, India, Asia, etc.

What Guyanese had in the past, and continue to enjoy today, is an enormous amount of Oriental, European, and South American-made fabrics. This is what permits the creation of new wearable, affordable and appropriate tropical fashions, male and female. From such raw material, an authentic local fashion scene emerged, and should continue today. Guyanese clothes, male and female, has to be once again homemade, pushing local creativity and jobs, both for private seamstresses and tailors, and wholesale companies like the once famous Briana which packaged beautifully made shirts of Oriental silks, and Evergreen, once located near Camp and South Streets, where clients could bring their own material and designs.

What, therefore, would be authentic examples of local fashions? Simply, styles of clothing, that is, shirts, blouses, skirts, dresses, trousers, jerseys, suits, cut from light tropical materials, such as cottons, silks, nylons, chiffon, satin, linen, polyester, terelyne, ‘saltere’, etc., which emphasise a practical yet stylish everyday ‘wearability’. Plain colours, such as pink, lilac, orange, various greens and reds, blues, yellows, and turquoise; also bright stripes and plaids, especially combined with light or dark lower wear, not only stand out, but enliven streets, clubs, cafes, parties, etc., when seen together.

Tropical fashions should play a role in the daily positive ‘upliftment’ of the moods of citizens, and not be confined to impractical luxuries modelled on catwalks. It should emphasise the collective human similarity of Guyanese, and not their dis-similarity, which already exists.

In Georgetown’s past, simple brilliant fashion styles crowded the seawall on Sundays and especially at Easter, when styles displayed, often in pairs, could have competed on any international catwalk today. Everyday, one could have seen such fashions of high local quality on the then uncluttered sidewalks outside Bookers (Guyana Stores), Fogarty’s, the Museum and Post Office, and Main Street avenue. Because the use of bicycles and walking exposed Guyanese to each other, the city streets, paves, and avenues were the catwalks of vivacious fashions.

Today, not one local designer or model appears to have thought of using such public places to show the everyday relevance of their fashions. The use of tight skirts and shorts by Guyanese girls on foot, bicycles or scooters, was very common, also the popularity of house fetes and cinema attendance encouraged the constant display of most exciting local fashions.

In 1995, I received a rude shock when I returned to Georgetown after a 17-year absence. Heavy woolen shirts, singlets with huge team numbers, garish shirts with dragons, etc., military camouflage, foreign city names, American states, advertisements, etc.; clumsy, ugly footwear, platform shoes, plastic and wool running pants, bruisingly tight and obviously hot tank tops, etc., silly-looking American bikes with straight handles and tiny fenderless wheels.

All this amazed me. There seemed to be no evidence of anything locally relevant or appropriately fashioned as before. I realised instantly that we had largely become consumers of other people’s identity, ideas and products, rather than creators of our own, as we had been even during pre-Independent British Guiana!

This change was not the result of poverty in the least, in fact many people clearly had more money today than past Guyanese. What had changed was the once dignified creative manner in which we fashioned our lives, which now seemed to be guided by choices oblivious to Guyanese inventiveness. Any sense of national fashion seemed to be conceived mostly as T-shirts printed with the national flag, slogans, etc.

Whatever happened to all those beautiful elbow-length shirts in stripes, silk, nylon, with shoulder straps like custom shirts, jersey-neck collars, etc.? What about canvas shoes with zip or laces? Ankle-high, light plastic galoshes with stud button for our rainy weather. Boat-neck elbow-length jerseys in light fabric? How about those plain white or any plain colour silk shirt with faint embroidery once made by Briana? Also the straight-tail shirt that can be worn in or out of trousers and still look elegant. What about the Bossa-Nova shirt with an open jersey neck and straps to pull in its sides at the waist?

These and so many more appropriate and sensible and comfortable tropical styles await our attention, both as attractive local products and innovative business ventures. What I’ve said here should just be a stimulus to the creation of new local fashions for both sexes, the sort of fashions that encourage and increase our daily joy.

By the way, fashions return in cycles, like past films, music, literature. It’s not a one-way street. What you don’t know as yet, no matter how old, remains something NEW FOR YOU.