Nass­er Khan

A prod­uct of Bel­mont, Wayne Berke­ley first at­tract­ed na­tion­al at­ten­tion in 1965 when he de­signed the cos­tume for the win­ner of the then Jaycee's Car­ni­val Queen con­test. From a very ear­ly age, he grav­i­tat­ed to draw­ing and paint­ing, win­ning a chil­dren's Com­mon­wealth-wide com­pe­ti­tion. While at­tend­ing St Mary's Col­lege, like so many of T&T's young cre­ative minds of his gen­er­a­tion, he was in­flu­enced by the renowned artist MP Al­ladin. As a mas de­sign­er and band­leader, his fo­cus was al­ways to por­tray and rep­re­sent the spir­it of Car­ni­val, while main­tain­ing his orig­i­nal­i­ty. His were not of the "his­to­ry book" type of por­tray­als as he per­sist­ed in the cre­ation of fan­ta­sy cos­tumes stick­ing to his phi­los­o­phy that car­ni­val cos­tume de­sign­ing is akin to po­et­ry and sto­ry­telling and that Car­ni­val was a street fete, al­beit cre­ative, beau­ti­ful, well or­gan­ised, punc­tu­al and or­der­ly.

Even though his for­ay in­to mas had start­ed a lot ear­li­er, it was in 1973 that as a large band­leader he burst on­to the scene with the first of his nine win­ning Band of the Year pro­duc­tions Se­crets of the Sky (along with Bob­by Am­mon). Imag­i­na­tive sec­tions such as Storm Clouds adorned this pre­sen­ta­tion. His oth­er eight win­ning pro­duc­tions, from a to­tal of 18 bands (list­ed be­low) span­ning 1973 to 1997, were in 1974, 1980, then six con­sec­u­tive vic­to­ries from 1989 to 1994 sur­pass­ing George Bai­ley's beaver-trick from 1959-1963.

He placed sec­ond on five oc­ca­sions and third on three. In 1998, he de­signed yet an­oth­er win­ner-Ama­ranth–The Se­cret Gar­den-this time for band leader Earl Pat­ter­son.

Berke­ley was by no means ex­clu­sive­ly a Car­ni­val de­sign­er as he was con­stant­ly in de­mand fur­ther afield (in ad­di­tion to the de­mand for his Car­ni­val de­sign­ing ser­vices) as a the­atri­cal and com­mer­cial de­sign­er, at home, in the Caribbean, in Eu­rope and North Amer­i­ca. In 2000, he suf­fered a stroke on his right side (his "writ­ing/draw­ing" side) but re­sumed draw­ing with his left hand though on a much small­er scale. To ho­n­our and recog­nise his works the Her­itage Li­brary di­vi­sion of NALIS host­ed a Car­ni­val pro­gramme and ex­hi­bi­tion ti­tled "The Evo­lu­tion of Cos­tume De­sign: The Con­tri­bu­tion of Wayne Berke­ley 1965 to 2010." In 1974 he was award­ed the Hum­ming Bird Gold Medal for his con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of Car­ni­val.

PRE­SEN­TA­TIONS

1973 - Se­crets of the Sky - 1st (with Bob­by Am­mon)

1974 - Kalei­do­scope - 1st

1975 - A La Carte - 2nd

1976 - Na­tion­al Her­aldry - 2nd

1977 - Hawaii

1978 - All That Jazz - 3rd

1979 - The Rit­u­al - 3rd

1980 - Gen­e­sis - 1st

1981 - Mas­quer­ade - 3rd

1989 - Hero Myth - 1st

1990 - Nine­teen-Nine­ty - 1st

1991 - Swan Lake - 1st

1992 - Ti­tan­ic - 1st

1993 - Strike Up the Band - 1st

1994 - Mi­rage - 1st

1995 - Origa­mi - 2nd

1996 - Show­boat - 2nd

1997 - Les Bi­joux - 2nd