Season Five of FFWD, the Middle East’s definitive fashion platform opens this Friday, 10th April, bringing four days of the best couture and ready-to-wear designers from across the region showing in Dubai. Guests attending this season will enjoy shows and presentations from 25 labels, six industry-focused talks and panel discussions, over 40 regional accessories designers displayed in The Garden plus a series of networking events. Since its inception in April 2013, FFWD has established itself as a major player in the region’s growing fashion industry, magnifying both Dubai and the Middle East’s credibility as a fashion hub with international outreach.

“As we open our fifth edition of FFWD, we look forward to presenting our most diverse programme to date,” said Bong Guerrero, Founder and CEO of FFWD. “This season brings the addition of presentations to complement the catwalk shows, offering diversity in the way designers show their collections, and the way guests can view them. We also introduce for the first time the ‘Day at d3’, taking FFWD onsite to Dubai Design District for an industry-focused day.”

“As we grow and evolve FFWD, we continue to look for ways to improve and enhance the event to ensure we provide the best possible platform for our regional designers to showcase their unique talent to the local, regional and international audience,” added Guerrero.

FFWD Season Five welcomes 25 apparel designers from countries including Lebanon, Morocco, Egypt, Kuwait, Dubai and the wider UAE as well as the Philippines and India. As with every edition of FFWD, the designers showcasing have their businesses based in the region or are of Middle Eastern origin.

This season’s catwalk designers will present their Fall/Winter 2015 collections across runway shows and presentations from April 10th-12th at The Madinat Jumeirah.

In addition to the runway shows and presentations, highlights of Season Five include a diverse roster of talks and panel discussions forming the “d3 Fashion Talks”. The topics to be covered include: the evolution of fashion with ten outfits that changed the world; the influence of the Middle East on Western fashion; the impact of visual merchandising and the relationship between fashion and film.

Furthering the strategic partnership with d3, this Season sees the final day of FFWD being held on site at Dubai Design District, bringing the designers together with industry leaders, buyers and media. Along with networking opportunities and panel discussions, on the day each designer will have a showroom space, displaying their full collection.

As well as the guests attending FFWD, the runway collections shown at Season Five will once again be displayed to an international audience on the WGSN portal, facilitating international trend reporting from the Middle East as well as reaching over 20,000 industry professionals through Fashion GPS’ exclusive industry-only community, GPS Radar.

Once again, all catwalk imagery will be shot and edited by Getty Images and hosted on their international portal. Getty will also be shooting all shows to be live-streamed on Style.com/Arabia, the first Condé Nast fashion and beauty publication in the Middle East.

FFWD takes place at The Madinat Jumeirah from 10th-12th of April and at Dubai Design District (d3) on the 13th April. For the full timings and more information see the FFWD schedule.