Er­line An­drews

K2K Al­liance, a com­pa­ny start­ed by New York-based twin de­sign­ers Kathy and Karen Nor­man, re­cent­ly launched its fifth Car­ni­val pre­sen­ta­tion, Search­ing for Shangri-La, along with the au­dio book Grow­ing Black Or­chids, writ­ten by the twins, which in­spired it.

Dur­ing a gala event at the Hy­att, K2K al­so launched a pow­er-talk se­ries, Colour of Courage, with a speech by in­ter­na­tion­al­ly ac­claimed de­sign­er Am­sale Aber­ra. Via email, Kathy talks about the band, the work­ing re­la­tion­ship be­tween her and her sis­ter, and K2K ex­tend­ing it­self be­yond Car­ni­val and fash­ion.

Q: What ex­act­ly mo­ti­vat­ed the idea for Colour of Courage? Who came up with it?

As we con­tem­plat­ed our jour­ney we re­alised that there were cer­tain tools that aid­ed us on this path. In­evitably, one of the key pil­lars is courage. En­tre­pre­neur­ship is not an easy route and we are sure that many who have start­ed down this path would tes­ti­fy that on the best of days, you need a whole lot of pas­sion, tenac­i­ty and, in the end, courage to build and con­tin­ue to sus­tain a busi­ness mod­el.

Thus, through our in­tro­spec­tion, the Colour of Courage was born. In terms of who came up with the idea–I would like to say the brain­child be­hind the Colour of Courage was Karen. In­ter­est­ing­ly enough, al­though we work in uni­son, Karen tends to spear­head the in­no­va­tion be­hind our new con­cepts.

When we first got our dri­ving li­cense years ago, Karen al­ways took the dri­ver's seat while I opt­ed for the pas­sen­ger's seat. Our dad no­ticed the strange phe­nom­e­na and said that Karen was the dri­ver while I was the front seat con­duc­tor, mak­ing sure that the path was clear, dou­ble-check­ing the re­view mir­ror to en­sure we could switch lanes ap­pro­pri­ate­ly. And fun­ni­ly enough, this the­o­ry seems to be true in our roles in K2K.

Why did you see the need to do this?

As Trinidad looks to grow its cre­ative in­dus­try, ac­tu­al­ly all its in­dus­tries, we think that it is im­por­tant to learn best prac­tices from those who have pre­ced­ed us to en­sure or help us not to make the same mis­takes as our fore­run­ners. Chal­lenges and mis­takes are part of grow­ing a busi­ness, but one of the aims of the ini­tia­tive is to try to min­imise the heartache where we can.

The pow­er-talk se­ries is meant to let pro­fes­sion­als know that prob­lems are not unique or in­su­lar, but are uni­ver­sal. De­vel­op­ing a per­son­al brand or a busi­ness brand is not go­ing to be easy, but with per­se­ver­ance, hard work and a dose of courage, we can over­come chal­lenges.

Is your new mot­to "Where fash­ion meets mas with a pur­pose"?

The K2K mot­to is not new, but rather the brand has evolved be­yond fash­ion meet­ing mas. We are fash­ion meet­ing mas with a pur­pose, with that pur­pose be­ing to in­spire and mo­ti­vate. As we re-eval­u­ate the brand and look at the themes which we have por­trayed over the years, we re­alised that we have al­ways tak­en sto­ry­telling from the av­enue of life lessons. As we look at the world at large with all its is­sues, we re­alise that we need more pos­i­tive mes­sages and in­spi­ra­tional sto­ries.

Here at K2K, we aim to do just that. We would like to in­spire you not just dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son, but 365 days a year. This is the 365-day con­cept of the brand com­ing full cir­cle.

How would you de­scribe your 2016 pre­sen­ta­tion, Search­ing for Shangri-La? What are peo­ple go­ing to see on Car­ni­val Tues­day?

Search­ing for Shangri-La speaks to try­ing to find that per­fect place, which we have trans­lat­ed to a phys­i­cal place, eg Eden. How­ev­er, in our Shangri-La, we talk about life be­ing filled with an ar­ray of flow­ers, with each flower rep­re­sent­ing an ex­pe­ri­ence in one's life. How­ev­er, when one puts those flow­ers to­geth­er, one re­alis­es how rich and di­verse one's life is. Thus, Search­ing for Shangri-La speaks to search­ing for some­thing per­fect–but the irony about life is that noth­ing is per­fect; in­stead, one's life is a per­fect­ly im­per­fect bou­quet. Bear­ing that in mind, the voyeur should ex­pect in­tri­cate work and del­i­cate tex­tures ac­cen­tu­at­ed with petals to mir­ror the theme. For the male cos­tumes, ex­pect tai­lored suits, corsets and bead­ing to com­ple­ment the women's wardrobe. Ex­pect so­phis­ti­ca­tion, glam­our, a world of make-be­lieve. Ex­pect K2K's touch of mag­ic.

How did the band do last year in com­pe­ti­tion? What are your ex­pec­ta­tions for this year?

K2K Al­liance & Part­ners placed first in the medi­um band cat­e­go­ry. We ex­pect to re­main in the medi­um band cat­e­go­ry with the hope of bring­ing the beau­ty of Shangri-La to the Sa­van­nah stage.

From the aer­i­al view, we would like spec­ta­tors to see a mo­bile for­est (these are our Tree Walk­ers), and from the eye lev­el, the ob­serv­er should see beau­ti­ful flow­ers nes­tled be­neath the canopy of trees.

Who is the K2K mas­quer­ad­er? What do you think at­tracts peo­ple to your work?

The K2K mas­quer­ad­er is one that is look­ing for so­phis­ti­cat­ed and chic cos­tum­ing. The brand prides it­self on sto­ry­telling, but sto­ry­telling not in the tra­di­tion­al sense. We tell life lessons though mas. We at­tempt to in­spire though mas.

K2K of­fers an in­ti­mate ex­pe­ri­ence and thus we at­tract in­di­vid­u­als that are look­ing for a fam­i­ly en­vi­ron­ment, with at­ten­tion to fin­er de­tail­ing.

How did you meet Am­sale Aber­ra? Why did you want her to be your first speak­er?

We met with one of our men­tors in NY and were dis­cussing the K2K plat­form and the di­rec­tion of the brand. Our men­tor in­tro­duced us to Am­sale. Af­ter meet­ing her and learn­ing about her jour­ney–her tri­als and tribu­la­tions–we thought that pro­fes­sion­als in T&T should have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to meet her. She is so hum­ble and so beau­ti­ful (in­side and out).

One would nev­er think that she is the own­er of a mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar com­pa­ny. Af­ter we spoke to her, she com­ment­ed, "Girls, the on­ly thing I can be is me."

To be hon­est, as we look at our brand, as we look at who we are to­day, the re­al­i­ty is that we can­not change who we are–K2K is mul­ti­fac­eted, K2K is not every­thing to every­one, K2K is unique, and we would like to think this is just who we are. Courage is not al­ways demon­strat­ed in the most out­ra­geous wrap­ping. Courage some­times is dis­played in the hum­blest pack­ages. And, hon­est­ly, that is Am­sale.

What oth­er projects do you have in the works? When is the next CoC event and who do you have lined up to speak?

The Colour of Courage is meant to be an an­nu­al event, so the next one will be next year. Look out, as it is an ex­cit­ing, mul­ti-dis­ci­plined line-up.

Tell me about the book club and au­di­ble ex­pe­ri­ence.

As we look to ex­port Trinidad cul­ture and dri­ve in­no­va­tion at K2K, the au­di­ble ex­pe­ri­ence and book club is just that. We are the first Car­ni­val band and on­ly Car­ni­val band to date that has such an ex­tend­ed plat­form. Each year we plan to re­lease a novel­la (short sto­ry) that speaks to the theme of our Car­ni­val por­tray­al. The first au­di­ble pi­lot was launched last year. This year we mean to bring that au­di­ble ex­pe­ri­ence full cy­cle through a com­pre­hen­sive novel­la.

What fash­ion projects have you worked on out­side of Car­ni­val?

Our in­tro­duc­tion to fash­ion was through Queensway Ltd where we de­signed kitchen tex­tiles (15 to be ex­act) for An­tho­ny Ra­hael to be sold in the T&T mar­ket. We have had the plea­sure of de­sign­ing prints for Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars, dress­ing the Mar­i­onettes Chorale, dress­ing and de­sign­ing gar­ments for Rachel Price, and even pro­duc­ing wed­ding dress­es. Al­though the brand is as­so­ci­at­ed with Car­ni­val, the scope goes be­yond that av­enue.