THE biggest fashion events here – Singapore Fashion Festival (SFF) and Singapore Fashion Week – may be on hiatus this year but fashionistas can take heart as one new show will go on.

Called the Audi Fashion Festival (AFF), the show organised by Mercury M&C will see at least 10 runway events over a five-day run at Ngee Ann City Civic Plaza from May 6 to 10.

Labels like French couturier Christian Lacroix, British icon Vivienne Westwood and American designer Marc Jacobs will be shown. In a Singapore designers- only show called Blueprint, home-grown labels like newcomers Blackmarket and Ashley Isham will take to the runways.

The fashion industry is applauding the brave move.

Show producer Douglas Khee said that fashion events are here to “remind people that we have a vibrant fashion scene” despite tough economic times.

Ms Tjin Lee, managing director of Mercury M&C, said: “Times are bad, but we need to have at least one world-class fashion event if we are to be (considered) a cosmopolitan city.”

Her company organised the SFF in 2004 and last year. AFF will be a scaled-down event which will cost $1 million, approximately half the cost of last year’s SFF.

Mr Douglas Benjamin, chief executive of FJ Benjamin whose home-grown brand Raoul is taking part in AFF, told my paper that it is “critical” to have an event like this regardless of the economy.

“Fashion is a huge business worldwide,” he said. “The shows provide escapism for the public, who have had enough of bad news like stock-market crashes and war.”

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The Audi Fashion Festival will be held at Ngee Ann City Civic Plaza from May 6-10. Tickets go on sale on April 13 at Tickets.com (www.tdc.sg). Prices range from $10 to $500. Go to http://audifashionfestival.com for more information.

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