Cedella, the eldest daughter of Bob and Rita Marley has been chosen designer to fashion sportswear for all of Jamaica’s Olympic team to London in 2012. Reportedly, she will design the podium, performance, ceremony and casual wear for the entire Jamaican team to London, England.
Named by Puma, the islands’ major sponsor of the delegation, the reggae-associated Marley designer will also create a lifestyle line for the German company.
The former background singer who accompanied her brother’s debut recording reggae band – Ziggy Marley & The Melody Makers — launched her fashion line in 2001 with trendsetting skirts, shirts, and lacy items named “Catch A Fire,” the title of one of her father’s hit recordings.
Since that time, she has set aside her singing, acting and music career to focus on fashion designing.
“It’s going to be vibrant. It’s going to be spicy. I want to bring in prints, some African influence into it as well, maybe a bracelet; the idea is to get a complete look from head to toe,” the former Melody Maker explained about her plans to dress the nation’s representatives.
“It is truly an honor to design this collection for my home country and my home team,” Marley said.
The talented offspring said: “It’s not even a dream come true because it’s something I never dreamed would be possible.”
“I want to bring the old and the new Jamaica together,” she said. “It should be Grace Jones meets Bob Marley on the track, and we’re going to have fire on the field.”
The Grace Jones mention probably addresses a fashion-forward approach envisioned to compatibly blend with reggae-associated black, gold and green colorations.
Although the designer has never met Usain Bolt, the island’s principal Olympic champion of the last Olympics (which was held in Beijing, China) she said she has ideas for unique outfits for the world’s fastest athlete.
“We’re going to have something special for him. Only for him,” Marley stated. She said she is expecting to work with Bolt next month in Jamaica.
“We’re going to work together.”
“I can’t think of a better person to design our Olympic outfits than Cedella,” Bolt said in a statement.
“Puma got that right… hooking up with a legendary Jamaican.
“It’s going to be inspirational to run in London with that energy surrounding me.”
“A lot of people are going to be looking at Mr. Bolt,” Antonio Berton, Puma’s chief marketing officer said of the 2012 games.
The collaboration with Puma reportedly manifested during a chance phone meeting between Marley and Puma Chairman and CEO Jochen Zeitz.
“I said, ‘Yo Mr. Puma, how come you’ve not done anything with the Marleys? Come on, you know, Puma, Marley, Jamaica. It makes sense,” Marley said.
“And he just said, ‘Well, you know, Cedella, everything takes time.’ And like two weeks later I got a phone call. I guess it was time,” Marley explained.
PUMA’s Olympic wear will be accompanied by a complete lifestyle collection of apparel, which will be available at PUMA retail stores globally. A small capsule collection will be available with limited distribution in August 2011, in time for the IAAF 2011 World Championships in Korea.
“I’m done with my sketches. I’m getting ready to take a trip to New York to visit PUMA and work with their team to select the fabrics and material. That is something that is new to me and so I’m looking forward to that. These are the things that I have to consider when I’m designing performance gear, ‘breathe-ability’, so to speak and so forth.
Littlest Obama Dialogues In Chinese With Leader Hu
Little Sasha Obama was reportedly seen waving a Chinese flag when China’s President Hu Jintao arrived in the district capital on a state visit recently. Along with members of her class who welcomed the leader, the nine-year-old student stood behind ropes at the White House to see the visiting leader. The youngest daughter of the president of the United States “excitedly waved the flag” as her father and the leader walked around the grounds.
According to reports in The Shanghai Daily, a Chinese newspaper, President Barack Obama and President Jintao walked over to the class and for a brief moment exchanged sentiments with the budding, bi-lingual students of Sidwell Friends in Washington D.C. The first White House resident to be born in the 21st century enjoyed the privileged position to greet the Asian leader on the lawns of her home. Reportedly, in a private moment during a state dinner, little Sasha took the opportunity to test her proficiency in Mandarin Chinese by talking with the leader in his native language.
“Not every (child) has the opportunity to try out their first phrases of Chinese with the president of China,” Ben Rhodes, a White House deputy national security adviser, told a video conference with Chinese bloggers. “But she had that chance.”
“She’s under 10 years old and they’re (her class) studying Chinese, and she wanted to have the chance to practice her Chinese with President Hu.”
Catch You On The Inside!
