Sean Nero

It seems that there is no bet­ter time like the present to be a stu­dent of fash­ion de­sign in T&T. If you're doubt­ful of this, just ask the first group of grad­uands from the two-year diplo­ma pro­gramme at the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT) Caribbean Acad­e­my of Fash­ion De­sign (CAFD). They are evolv­ing at a time when the stage for fash­ion and re­lat­ed events in T&T abounds. Mod­els have been strut­ting and twirling in their cre­ations and fash­ion­istas have been salut­ing their de­sign con­cepts. From Fash­ion Week T&T (FWTT) to the Mas­ter­Card Fash­ion Month, as well as nu­mer­ous sig­na­ture pro­duc­tions, the stage for these up-and-com­ing de­sign­ers is ripe.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's at­ten­dance at FWTT back in June, was a sig­nif­i­cant event in the lives of these cou­ture new­bies.

There, she out­lined that the fash­ion in­dus­try was high on gov­ern­ment's pri­or­i­ties in re­la­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of this coun­try's non-en­er­gy sec­tors. Per­sad-Bisses­sar gave the event the seal of ap­proval when she strut­ted down the run­way to the ab­solute de­light of the large au­di­ence. These 28 emerg­ing de­sign­ers were all part of those pro­duc­tions shar­ing the spot­light with lead­ing Caribbean de­sign­ers and wow­ing fash­ion­istas with their ca­su­al and el­e­gant cre­ations.

As fate would have it, CAFD stu­dents were at it again on Au­gust 7, for Makin' Style held at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel lo­cat­ed on Dock Road in Port-of-Spain. Pro­duced by Co­co Vel­vet In­ter­na­tion­al CAFD younglings were cen­tre-stage with Chris­t­ian Bou­caud, Spice Rack De­signs, Mau­rice Sed­well. Trained as skilled tech­ni­cians and in the art of style sen­si­tiv­i­ty, the CAFD syl­labus in­clud­ed two types of pat­tern draft­ing, as well as class­es in draw­ing aimed at de­vel­op­ing their abil­i­ty to sketch ideas on pa­per. There was al­so a con­cep­tu­al de­sign course that teach­es stu­dents how to put to­geth­er a col­lec­tion as well as stud­ies in tex­tile de­sign, too.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, some stu­dents have been able to cre­ate and de­sign func­tion­al hand­bags and jew­el­ry for the lo­cal mar­ket. It comes as no sur­prise that Car­ol Mon­go, fash­ion con­sul­tant at UTT, is proud of her stu­dents, who had long dreamt of study­ing fash­ion, but could not af­ford to go to the Unit­ed King­dom or North Amer­i­ca. She's con­vinced that there's a new gen­er­a­tion of 'Glam Gods' ready to take the flame of fash­ion in T&T, to the in­ter­na­tion­al fash­ion are­na.

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