THE runway has been cleared for more Singapore labels and Asian faces to make a landing at this year’s Singapore Fashion Festival.

Among the high-fliers heading this way are Japanese supermodels Ai Tominaga and Anne Watanabe (actor Ken Watanabe’s daughter) who will catwalk at Ngee Ann City during the 10-day event, which starts on March 23.

This was announced by the Singapore Tourism Board and IMG Fashion-Pico, the event’s organisers, as well as presenting sponsor MasterCard, yesterday. New York-based designer Vivienne Tam will open the festival, now in its seventh year, while British designer Matthew Williamson – who has reportedly never shown in Asia before – will close it on April 1.

But the spotlight will also fall strongly on at least 12 Singapore-based designers and brands, up from seven last year.

Among them is Baylene, designed by Taiwan-born, Singapore-based Baylene Li, who will show 35 black-and-white outfits from her latest womenswear and menswear collections on March 27, in a show sponsored by French conglomerate L’Oreal.

Singaporean Vicky Tay, designer and owner of six-month-old Burgundy, is making her debut in a show sponsored by Finnish cellphone-maker Nokia. “I hope to gain experience showing at a large-scale event,” she said.

Her models will parade 12 nautical-inspired outfits on the runway, which will also feature capsule collections by three other Singapore-based designers: Desmond Yang of Abyzz, Hiroko Ueno of Ueno, and last year’s Asian Young Fashion Designers Contest winner Harry Halim.

On the programme too is a show by the Textile and Fashion Federation of Singapore for established home-grown designers, such as K Mi Huang of Womb, Nicholas Wong of Nicholas and Ben Wu of Tian.

And The Link boutique’s in-house designer label alldressedup, which won fashion critics’ vote for best show last year, is back again.

STB’s assistant chief executive of leisure Chan Tat Hon said the festival is to brand Singapore as a leading fashion retail hub and destination in Asia.

Visitors to the Republic spent $3.26 billion on shopping in 2005, of which fashion apparel and accessories accounted for a third. STB hopes the festival will help double visitor arrivals to 17 million and triple tourism receipts to $30 billion by 2015.

Last year’s event cost $2 million to organise, and its success has made an impression on overseas designers. Shanghainese designer Lu Kun, for instance, will present his fall-winter 2007 ready-to-wear and haute couture collections for the first time here, even before Shanghai gets a peep.

“I think Singapore is a potential market for my label because we’ve similar cultural backgrounds. I see Singapore as a window from Asia to the world,” he said.

For information and free tickets (some shows are only by invitation), log onto www.singaporefashionfestival.com.sg

michtay@sph.com.sg