Er­line An­drews

Twin sis­ters Kathy and Karen Nor­man–the core of the com­pa­ny K2K Al­liance–are New York-based in­vest­ment bankers and fash­ion de­sign­ers who have be­come best known for their medi­um-sized Car­ni­val band, which since 2011 has of­fered fan­tas­ti­cal, thought­ful­ly-de­signed cos­tumes to a base of de­vot­ed mas­quer­aders that in­cludes for­mer Miss Uni­verse Janelle Pen­ny Com­mis­siong.

K2K launched their 2016 pre­sen­ta­tion–Search­ing for Shangri-La–on Sat­ur­day, at a gala event at the Hy­att be­fore guests who in­clud­ed the Prime Min­is­ter's wife Sharon Row­ley, Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Max­ie Cuffie, oth­er min­is­ters, mas­man Pe­ter Min­shall, de­sign­er Clau­dia Pe­gus and oth­er mem­bers of T&T's who's who.

The event launched oth­er new K2K projects that would see the com­pa­ny change their mot­to from "where fash­ion meets mas" to ""where fash­ion meets mas with a pur­pose."

In­ter­na­tion­al­ly ac­claimed de­sign­er Am­sale Aber­ra gave what is in­tend­ed to be the first in a se­ries of speech­es K2K is call­ing The Colour of Courage. The in­ten­tion of the ini­tia­tive is to in­tro­duce lo­cal au­di­ences to suc­cess­ful and in­spir­ing per­son­al­i­ties whose sto­ries could have a pos­i­tive im­pact on lis­ten­ers.

Aber­ra, the daugh­ter of an Ethiopi­an gov­ern­ment min­is­ter, came to the US when she was 19 to study. Af­ter so­cial and po­lit­i­cal up­heaval in her home coun­try, she could not re­turn and she had to find a way to sur­vive in the US on her own. That's when she de­cid­ed to use her tal­ent as a dress­mak­er. To­day Aber­ra is renowned for her bridal and evening gowns. She's dressed a long list of celebri­ties in­clud­ing Halle Berry and Salma Hayek and one of her wed­ding dress­es was used in the sea­son fi­nale of the hit TV show Grey's Anato­my in 2007.

"I knew that I had to sur­vive. I had to find my way," Aber­ra told the au­di­ence at the Hy­att.

"The Colour of Courage is a pow­er-talk se­ries that seeks to in­spire pro­fes­sion­als through in­sight­ful dis­cus­sions led by in­dus­try am­bas­sadors, change the way that pro­fes­sion­als think about stum­bling blocks and find cop­ing mech­a­nisms to ad­dress pro­fes­sion­al chal­lenges," K2K ex­plained in a dig­i­tal book on its web­site.

In ad­di­tion to the talk se­ries and the band, the K2K brand now al­so in­cludes the K2K Au­di­ble Ex­pe­ri­ence, a book se­ries that was launched last year.

The twins' novel­la Grow­ing Black Or­chids in­spired Search­ing for Shangri-la and was al­so launched on Sat­ur­day.

The book's pro­tag­o­nist, Kathryn M Fern, who is mute, strives to over­come fear and in­se­cu­ri­ty.

"Kathryn's sto­ry takes you on a jour­ney through a mead­ow filled with an as­sort­ment of per­fect­ly im­per­fect flowerbeds where each flower rep­re­sents a new ex­pe­ri­ence," reads a de­scrip­tion on the K2K web­site. "The flaws of each flower sym­bol­izes her ca­pac­i­ty to make mis­takes, while the flow­ers' vi­su­al ap­peal rep­re­sents her abil­i­ty to cor­rect and grow from those mis­takes."

The K2K Car­ni­val 2016 col­lec­tion was ini­tial­ly go­ing to be called Mead­ow­lands (In Bloom). The name didn't sit well with their moth­er and friends. Their moth­er sug­gest­ed Shangri-La.

Search­ing for Shangri-la re­flects the flo­ral theme of the novel­la and con­tin­ues K2K haute cou­ture ap­proach to mas. The de­signs are glit­ter­ing, flow­ing gowns that would not look out of place on a fash­ion week run­way any­where in the world. The head­pieces frame the en­tire face and have petal-like pro­tru­sions.

"We think that at some point in every­one's lives he/she is search­ing for some­thing," the twins write, "whether it is hap­pi­ness, peace or a silent place where the noise of the so­cio-po­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment dis­si­pates. Shangri-La is a mead­ow­land in full bloom, a place we go to find our cen­tre."

K2K fans so far seem ex­cit­ed.

"Cos­tumes are riv­et­ing and ex­tra­or­di­nary," me­dia con­sul­tant Judette Cow­ard gushed on Twit­ter. "Pre­sen­ta­tion of flo­rals, flow­ers, trees, but­ter­flies like a mag­ic gar­den of some sorts that has come alive."

More in­fo

?For more about K2K and their 2016 pre­sen­ta­tion, vis­it k2k-car­ni­val.com