The very best of Portuguese fashion will once again be on display when Lisbon Fashion Week or ModaLisboa kicks off Friday, showcasing 18 of the country's top designers plus Polish guest designer Monika Ptaszek, with their new collections for Autumn/Winter 2013/2014.

"The first day of ModaLisboa is still one of the busiest in terms of side events including a program of short lectures on how to look fashionable in contemporary society and how fashion influences and is influenced by the worlds of art, business, consumerism and social and political movements of our time," said Eduarda Abbondanza, organizer of the event.

"The theme for this 40th edition is Trust because less is more and because confidence is a key factor in the world today," Abbondanza said.

Lisbon City Council has approved the ModaLisboa fashion event for another three years in the capital. This year it will spend some 352,800 euros on presenting Portugal's up and coming designers over six editions of the initiative in the months of March and October.

The cooperation protocol between the camera and the Association ModaLisboa provides for this year and the next two. The values of the local authority to support future issues will be fixed later.

"There will be the usual presentations of collections for next winter, but there will also be space for fresh projects related to fashion such as accessories and art," Abbondanza said.

The fashion parades kicked off at 6 p.m. Friday with the presentation of pieces of jewelry by designer Valentine Lent followed at 7:30 p.m. with the collection of Polish designer Monika Ptaszek, who comes to Lisbon under an exchange protocol between ModaLisboa and Poland's FashionPhilosophy event.

The end of the first day also saw the opening of the "Wonder Room", a space, according to Abbondanza, for "micro-related design, which not only represent fashion but the various disciplines that fashion and clothing touch."

"The Wonder Room will exhibit Portuguese brands such as Shoal, Rualidade, Swish, Roda Gira, ELLG, Tiger Bear, Light Box Leal, Mr. Prudencio, Catarina Ferreira which are not represented on the catwalk but can make themselves known to the media and the general public and also to buyers," said Abbondanza.

In this edition there are many free initiatives open to the general public, such as "Fast Talks About Fashion", a series of quick conversations about fashion which will be held in Lisbon's fashion and design museum (MUDE). The museum will also serve as a cinema showing the documentary "The Eye has to Travel" about Diana Vreeland, who died in 1989 and was a French columnist and editor of two fashion magazines Vogue and Harper's Bazaar.

Over the next two days, the event will host parades by designers like Louis Buchinho, Pedro Pedro, Alexandra Moura, Ricardo Preto, Nuno Baltazar, Dino Alves, Philip Sparks, Miguel Vieira and Nuno Gama. Endi

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