Sri Lanka’s largest fashion extravaganza, the “Colombo Fashion Week,” got underway on Friday, showcasing unique designs from local and international designers. The show, now in its 14th year, aimed to promote Sri Lanka’s fashion industry globally. “Since its inception, this platform has aided the local fashion industry in gaining much-needed momentum in aspects of fashion education, fashion retail, designer development, and in creating opportunities for designers to showcase their work internationally,” an organiser of the fashion week said. This year, the event was held under the theme “Celebrate Colombo” to showcase Colombo from the tourism perspective as a vibrant and creative city. Sri Lanka Tourism Minister John Amaratunga said in a statement that the fashion week had become an annual fixture in Sri Lanka’s events calendar and had over the years metamorphosed into a high profile tourism attraction with a global impact. 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.