Day 1 of the Colombo Fashion Week kicked off with an Emerging Designers’ Showcase at the Hilton Colombo. Set in the Foyeur of the Graze restaurant, the show featured eight new up and coming designers. Namely Dinushi Pamunuwa, Anushika Perera, Poorni Wijesinghe, Savindri Kuruppu, Vathsala Gunasekara, Marlon Rae, Mihiri De Silva, and Yathra Jayawardene. The night saw two brands being launched when their debut collections were showcased on the runway. The brands being Dinushi Pamunuwa’s La Pard and Marlon Rae’s Maluba! We also witnessed Savindri Kuruppu’s entry into the fashion industry that night, as she presented her first ever fashion collection as a designer. Batik and linen seemed to be the order of the night, with most collections featuring either one or both. The stand out collections were Savindri Kuruppu’s edgy yet feminine collection and Yathra Jayawardena’s collection which is an elegant take on batik design. Colombo Fashion Week was conceived in 2003, as a project that was focused on uplifting Sri Lanka’s fashion design industry. Today it is firmly established as the backbone of Sri Lanka’s fashion design industry and in its journey of over a decade it has taken Sri Lanka’s fashion design industry from strength to strength. CFW as its popularly known is probably one of three fashion weeks in Asia that is over 10 years.