Tax waiver granted on costume materials – Mash coordinator

After years of criticism about the quality of local costumes that are produced for Mashramani festivities, 35 local designers are set to undergo a one-week training, seminar, and workshop to help improve the quality in 2020.
According to Mashramani coordinator Andrew Tyndall, the workshop will be hosted by international and award-winning designers. He added that Guyanese can look forward to more colour, creativity and overall quality in the designs of the costumes that will be displayed on the February 23 Float Parade as Guyana celebrates 50 years as a Republic.

“We are working with Antonio Butts who is a Guyanese designer living in Trinidad, operating out of the Trinidad Carnival Commission, Alan Vaughn who is the current winner for the individual male and female pieces for Carnival 2019… he is also a Guyanese living in the UK, and we are working with the Guyana Cultural Association (GCA), and the STEM Robotic programme”, he said.
Tyndall further added: “We were able to increase the capacity of our local designers and all of those designers are on board with us for Mash 2020.”
However, one of the challenges that designers have pointed out is the high cost of the costume materials. Tyndall said that a decision was taken by the Government to waive taxes on costume materials during the Mashramani season.
He added that collaboration will be done with local businesses that will be importing the materials.
“We would have had a conversation with Muneshwar, and Kirpalani [Shamdas], and China Trading about them sourcing the materials, having them here. Instead of designers having to travel to Trinidad to buy that material and then come back to here…. it’s not just the cost of the material, it’s the additional cost of travelling. These entities would have given us the assurance…to have most of the material here”, he said.
Meanwhile, several local designers recently underwent a series of training to better their craft.