Fayola K J Fraser
Milan Fashion Week is a clothing trade show held semi-annually in Milan, Italy, and one of the most revered collations of iconic fashion internationally. During the recently concluded Milan Fashion Week, a Trinidadian, creative director of Sagaboi, Geoff Cooper brought his designs to life on the runway of the highly-acclaimed event. From his humble beginnings in the “bucolic, idyllic village” of Moruga, Cooper has made his name in the fashion industry, and his most recent collection named “Calypso Arrival” pays homage to calypso music and fashion, and is characterised by one of T&T’s most distinct and emblematic characters, the smooth, suave “Sagaboi”.
Cooper, a Merikin descendant, described growing up in Moruga, on the very tip of the southernmost point of T&T, steeped in culture, with a deeply rooted appreciation for our heritage. Following his tenure at the then Moruga Composite, Cooper continued his education in the United States and subsequently pursued various careers–in accounting, at the United Nations, and as a fashion writer. Eventually, he found his stride in the fashion publication arena, founding a men’s fashion magazine called G Caribbean, which he describes as the GQ of the Caribbean, which eventually became Sagaboi.
However, this wasn’t Cooper’s first brush with fashion, as he found multiple sources of inspiration in his village in Moruga during his childhood, including being “inspired by my mom’s nursing uniforms and style.” Cooper fondly remembered falling in love with fashion as a child, creating and designing outfits inspired by his aunts and grandmother who were seamstresses in their own right, and also being awed by the intricacy and vibrancy of the gowns and garb of the Spiritual Baptist women in their church.
“The spiritual connection they had to their clothing was inspiring,” he remembers, “and they exuded beauty, confidence, authority and allure,” all of which made him very drawn to fashion.
Throughout his illustrious career, Cooper has had the opportunity to collaborate with many of the well-known stalwarts in the T&T fashion industry, such as Meiling and Millhouse. He has also received international acclaim, with his fashions being displayed on GQ’s website, Esquire and the Evening Standard in the UK. As a style editor, Cooper said, he is also often touted for his personal style, as one of the best dressed men not only in a room, but in a city, and describes his aesthetic as “an amalgamation of my multi-ethnic heritage, the visually variegated places I have lived in, the media I consume, all refined in a very ‘Geoff’ way.” Throughout his career, Cooper has maintained a core ethos, however, “to represent our Trinidadian culture at its best, and really allow our culture to be seen alongside the world’s best.”
His collection being featured at Milan’s Fashion Week certainly brought life to that ethos, as Sagaboi is the first brand from T&T and the Caribbean to showcase officially at Milan Fashion Week. On the day of his show, Cooper’s showcase was immediately followed by big brands such as Prada, Tom Ford and Giorgio Armani, and the captive audience that awaited to see his fashions alongside those brands was not of his wildest dreams. He described a range of emotions both during and after the show, “the overwhelming sense of gratitude, but also the fear and the immense pressure to perform at my best for my country.”
The preparation and production of the collection for the fashion week started in 2023 and took place mostly in T&T. Cooper worked with local crocheters to produce fabric and designs, had input from local costume designers and artists to produce breastplates for the clothing, collaborated with BLAKGOLD–a DJ duo from T&T and Jamaica to produce the show’s music, and leveraged the skills of local seamstresses and tailors to get the collection completed. Cooper described the satisfaction of rallying our local creative efforts for the collection, as it was a clear indication of the talent and ability of our creative community.
Despite the odds and without half the resources of those bigger brands, Sagaboi took the stage to tell the story of a uniquely Caribbean aesthetic with its richness
of colour and fullness of fabric.
Cooper detailed the inspiration for the collection as rooted in the history of calypso, from the 1900s to the present. He spent hours pouring over covers of calypso albums, with calypsonians both male and female dressed in their finest, including the Mighty Sparrow, Lord Blakey, Calypso Rose, Lady Trinidad, among others. He described calypso as not only the “sound of the Caribbean,” but also “the first space where we could really see our culture impact the entire world over the past century.” Examining the impact of our calypso on our fashion and creative expression, he identified and personified the development of “calypso couture”, characterised by sway skirts for women, shorts for men, ruffled shirts all filled with colourful tones and exquisite frills. Thus, this powerful captivation of an international audience and global stage by calypso, set the stage for Cooper’s Sagaboi at Milan Fashion Week.
Sagaboi’s Fall/Winter 2024 collection is a testament to Cooper’s commitment to innovation, cultural authenticity, and artistic expression, inviting audiences to immerse themselves in the enchanting world of calypso-inspired designs.