Fashion focus should be on what we wear well

Past attempts by governments to make Thailand a regional hub for fashion have failed, and the Kingdom continues to supply cheaply manufactured clothes for other countries. This cannot go on forever because Thai labour costs are now considerably higher than in neighbouring countries.

However, Thailand does have talented local designers whose work can be seen in trendy areas such as Bangkok's Siam Square. Fashionistas come from Hong Kong and beyond to buy the latest styles here, but Thailand is far from being a regional fashion powerhouse despite the love for new trends amongst local youth.

Given that Thailand is a tropical country, it might be better if the Kingdom's designers and the agencies that support them began to focus on making Thailand a hub for hot-weather clothes and accessories. This should be obvious, but the problem is that we often try to imitate styles and fabrics from countries with proper autumn and winter climes. Such designs and materials are of course unsuitable for the Thai environment.

Since Thailand has year-round hot temperatures, designers would thus do well to emphasise the spirit of summer and transform this idea into attractive clothing brands that are suitable for the weather.

Forget about wool, cashmere and other such heavy materials, for most Thai fashion designers have too little experience or knowledge of these fabrics. Concentrate instead on fine Egyptian cotton and lightweight Thai cotton, linen and silk. These materials are more logical for local needs, and if designers received the proper education and support regarding these fabrics, perhaps Thailand could eventually produce a world-class summer clothing brand.

The potential is there. We have the whole year, every year to experiment. Our weather permits continual development of such an initiative. As a start, Thailand should not invest large sums of money on promoting its mass-produced clothes abroad, but should instead concentrate on investments in good fashion schools or institutes that will produce long-term benefits. A good way to use state educational and industry promotion budgets, as well as private sponsorship, would be to invest in an annual summer clothing design competition, open to young fashion designers from all over the country.

Fashion is becoming increasingly popular around the world, and this can be a boon for Thailand if we concentrate on what we can do best. Although we do not have internationally famous designers, there is undoubted talent here. Apply this talent to the needs of our environment and we can create new and exciting ranges of basic clothing items such as light summer trousers, cotton blouses and dresses, polo shirts and so on. At the outset, we will require high quality tailoring skills, but we already have them in abundance. From this basic building block, talented Thai designers will surely be able to apply their own unique imprints to the basics.

This basic concept requires that students of fashion receive adequate support to carry out research on summer apparel, and then to get their designs into production. With the proper promotion, the spirit of Thai design can be successfully exported to the world.

If Hermes can make the world's best hand-stitched silk and cotton scarves, with an air of French sophistication, and export them to the world at very high prices, why can't Thailand come up with leading brands of fine cotton clothing at reasonable prices? Thai silk may be nice, but so far the Kingdom has failed to expand this market. The luxurious, upmarket silks from Jim Thompson and the like are fine products indeed, but we have not managed to create other well-known brands that apply to everyday use.

The potential is here. We simply need to become more focused on what we can do well. Summer-wear may be the key to presenting Thailand's sartorial potential to the rest of the world.

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