Accelerating the region’s fashion talent

From selling bespoke dresses to royalty and organising corporate events, to launching a platform for regional designers to get worldwide exposure, Bong Guerrero has had a lot on his plate for the past 24 years. The co-founder and CEO of the Dubai-based Middle East fashion event, Fashion Forward, which started last year, talks to us about his longstanding passion and how he tried to turn his aspiration into reality.

What is the story behind Fashion Forward?

Fashion Forward is a marriage of two realms that I have been involved with: fashion and events.

I have been living in Dubai for the last 24 years. Back in 1991, I started a fashion house that catered to royalty and wealthy ladies; we made bespoke dresses. I did that for approximately seven years and it was doing quite well in those days, when there was hardly a shopping mall or any of the top brands to be seen.

After that I ventured into event management and have been doing that for the last 15 years, churning out a good share of the city’s corporate events. Five years ago, I started a live marketing and event management agency, called Brag, along with my partner Ramzi Nakad (co-creator and chief operating office of Fashion Forward).

Creating a fashion platform has always been at the back of my mind. I remember attending another platform in the past: Dubai Fashion Week. It had a lot of shortcomings and I thought to myself that one day, given the opportunity, I would like to launch a platform and call it ‘forward,’ because fashion should always be avant-garde, never backwards (because what I saw seemed a bit backwards). That was approximately seven to eight years ago.

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Accelerating the region’s fashion talent

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