Aba A Luke

Fash­ion Week Trinidad and To­ba­go 2009 opened up his eyes and in­vig­o­rat­ed his sense of pur­pose. Now he's fu­eled with enough gump­tion to get all that he wants. The Guardian, in a post-fash­ion week one-on-one with lo­cal, but well trav­eled, fash­ion de­sign­er Reg­gie Matthews, learnt that his la­bel Quel Que Chose is go­ing places–and do­ing so quite quick­ly.

You've heard of Quel Que Chose de­signs, haven't you? First of all, it's French for the word, "some­thing." Reg­gie Matthews and his 15-month-old, Barataria-San Juan-based style-house, are re­al­ly some­thing. He is slow­ly yet sure­ly head­ing to the top.

In­ter­na­tion­al

Matthews, a T&T na­tion­al, has lived in Paris, Bel­gium, Am­s­ter­dam, New York and Cal­i­for­nia. He feels his trav­el ex­pe­ri­ence has opened his mind to the un­con­ven­tion­al, whether in terms of life or fash­ion. Ex­pe­ri­ences from child­hood to ado­les­cence shaped Matthews' life and now, at the age of 38, the man who em­braces his roots whole­heart­ed­ly, says that he will not be la­belled by his per­son­al pref­er­ence to any one thing. In fact, he feels so strong­ly about this that his ten-piece col­lec­tion, which was show­cased on day one of Fash­ion Week T&T 2K9, fea­tured a touch of el­e­ments that span the world and span cul­tures, from African to Eu­ro­pean, cou­ture to street fash­ion.

Speak­ing on the show­case of his work at the high­ly ac­claimed week-long fash­ion event, Matthews, who was first dis­cov­ered by VP records while sell­ing his pieces along the streets of So­Ho in New York, said of his Fash­ion Week de­but: "The ex­pe­ri­ence was good, a lit­tle over­whelm­ing be­cause when I did shows abroad, they were on a small­er scale. I was sur­prised by some of the lo­cal de­sign­ers–the work they pro­duced–be­cause while some of the de­signs im­pressed me, some of them did not."

Some­thing for every­one

Reg­gie's all-male line, Quet chose, which is cre­ole for "dif­fer­ent thing," was a late ad­di­tion to the show but de­spite this, he thanked fel­low de­sign­er Heather Jones for her as­sis­tance in en­sur­ing that he was there. He was the first male de­sign­er to be fea­tured dur­ing the fash­ion fest, held at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel in Port-of-Spain and his small line is said to have in­ter­est­ed the crowd to a great de­gree, with even roy­al so­ca cou­ple Bun­ji Gar­lin and Faye Ann Lyons re­port­ed­ly mar­veling over Matthews' Rasta­far­i­an street-wear pieces.

Cur­rent­ly, Reg­gie's pieces can be found at Heather Jones' fash­ion house, which is lo­cat­ed at 55 Luis Street in Wood­brook. At the Fash­ion Week send-off par­ty, Matthews was again for­tu­nate to be among lo­cal fash­ion gu­rus and am­a­teurs too, who, like him, had cer­tain­ly proven their worth dur­ing the fash­ion gala. He said that along with Anya Ay­oung-Chee and oth­er new de­sign­ers, he was ac­knowl­edged for his work at the event. "The pur­pose of my en­try in­to Fash­ion Week T&T 2K9 was to es­tab­lish my­self as a lo­cal de­sign­er. I came from a hum­ble be­gin­ning and I'm work­ing my way up," said Matthews, who fur­ther ex­plained that in his cloth­ing, there's some­thing for every­one.

The Tai­lor

Speak­ing about his work eth­ic, Matthews said that he prefers to work with peo­ple who are more than 50 years of age. "Peo­ple more than 50 like to work and they have that foun­da­tion vibes, old school–you know? They work with pur­pose."

The for­mer St An­tho­ny's Col­lege stu­dent nev­er made it to fash­ion school but feels the school he did at­tend–what he refers to as the world school was best for him. He was ea­ger to thank his tai­lor Kelvin Mo­hammed, oth­er­wise known as Sher­iff. "A lot of tai­lors shunned me ear­ly on; they tricked me too, so I'm glad to have Sher­iff. He is re­al­ly neat so with my rigid style, we make the per­fect pair."