Dr. Safeeya Mo­hammed

guardian.wemagazine@gmail.com

Last Sun­day, the Au­di­to­ri­um of the Cen­tral Bank of T&T (CBTT) was ablaze with fash­ion, on and off stage.

With at­ten­dees as fash­ion­able as the time­less pieces on the stage, An Evening of Art and Fash­ion was pro­duced by the NGO Cho­sen Hands (CH) in part­ner­ship with CBTT un­der the aus­pices of the Gov­er­nor, Dr Alvin Hi­laire.

The CBTT, as part of its cor­po­rate so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, has up­held a strate­gic man­date to in­clude the pro­mo­tion of lo­cal artists. CBTT cu­rates through its mu­se­um, its au­di­to­ri­um and its ini­tia­tives in­vest­ing in art and well­ness and con­sis­tent­ly seeks to em­pow­er cre­atives, holis­ti­cal­ly.

“The CH Art and Well­ness pro­gramme mod­el is a per­fect match be­cause the NGO us­es art as a ve­hi­cle for help­ing at-risk youths nav­i­gate chal­lenges,” the bank’s mar­ket­ing team ex­plained. “We have worked with them in the past for mu­se­um tours and we are pleased to sup­port their fundrais­ing ven­ture.”

The pro­duc­tion was writ­ten and di­rect­ed by Richard Young fea­tur­ing de­sign­ers Stacey Weekes-Ben­jamin of Di­ane Carl­ton Caribbean and Jeneile Mc­Carthy-Sinanan with wear­able art by Ani­ka Plow­den-Corentin, founder of Cho­sen Hands, and Bri­an­na Mc­Carthy.

To crown off the en­ter­tain­ment was an in­spir­ing con­tem­po­rary dance, chore­o­graphed by De­on Bap­tiste, cul­mi­nat­ing with cap­ti­vat­ing per­for­mances by Muham­mad Muwak­il of Free­town Col­lec­tive. The pro­duc­tion was stage man­aged by Do­minique La Roche high­light­ing mod­els from Man­nequins Caribbean and host­ed charis­mat­i­cal­ly by a di­rec­tor at CH, Arveon Prout.

The pre­sen­ta­tion un­fold­ed with­in a dy­nam­ic script penned by Young to in­te­grate the Arts as a col­lec­tive medi­um to em­pow­er in­di­vid­ual po­ten­tial, en­gen­der cul­tur­al con­fi­dence and cel­e­brate cre­ative ex­cel­lence.

The evening was a beau­ti­ful syn­the­sis of wear­able art and fash­ion de­sign, pro­vok­ing thought and sig­nalling mes­sages, all en­thralling pa­trons, de­light­ful­ly. From the Gov­er­nor’s seal of ap­proval as he mod­elled the wear­able art to Richard Young’s com­pelling mono­logue on art, the show rolled out ex­quis­ite de­signs by Di­ane Carl­ton Caribbean, fea­tur­ing a slew of out­stand­ing movers and shak­ers, guest-ap­pear­ing on stage.

Wear­able art

Stacey Weekes Ben­jamin, Di­ane Carl­ton Caribbean said: “It is al­ways a plea­sure to re­al­ize that the con­tri­bu­tion you make through your craft and your busi­ness, is not just seen and ap­pre­ci­at­ed, but im­pact­ful. When Ani­ka Plow­den-Corentin pro­posed this syn­er­gy of art and fash­ion, with the men­tor­ship slant, I was ho­n­oured and elat­ed. Be­cause of my affin­i­ty to colour, prints and tex­ture, and my au­da­cious use of all three in my de­signs, I have al­ways had the de­sire to ex­plore the hand paint­ed space.

“So the thought of col­lab­o­rat­ing with an artist who was in­sis­tent on me main­tain­ing the au­then­tic­i­ty of my Di­ane Carl­ton palette, whilst fus­ing her hand paint­ed work in­to my de­signs, in the same way that I ma­nip­u­late print­ed fab­ric; well, that re­al­ly sang to my soul. The op­por­tu­ni­ty to work with the young women at The St Jude’s Home for Girls through the Cho­sen Hands Art and Well­ness Pro­gramme and to make it pos­si­ble for them to see their work show­cased on de­sign­er cloth­ing, at an event of such grandeur, was noth­ing short of a de­light­ful bonus.”

‘Feel the love’

A move­ment piece, chore­o­graphed by the in­domitable De­on Bap­tiste fol­lowed, tak­ing every­one’s breath away as he paid trib­ute to the trans­for­ma­tive cross­roads ex­pe­ri­enced in life, with the ever-es­sen­tial pow­er of hope and com­pas­sion, peren­ni­al­ly en­su­ing. Over­all, the dance proved quite an enig­mat­ic and up­lift­ing coun­ter­point of the pro­duc­tion.

De­sign­er Jeneile Mc­Carthy, fa­mous for her col­lab­o­ra­tions with Pe­ter Elias at Lost Tribe Car­ni­val, pre­sent­ed her easy-wear jew­ellery with her fash­ion com­pos­ites to a re­sound­ing va­tion. And the wear­able art of Ani­ka Plow­den-Corentin and Bri­an­na Mc Carthy bridged the gap be­tween art and fash­ion pro­duc­ing con­ver­sa­tion-piece ab­stract im­agery on tex­tiles craft­ed, re­spec­tive­ly, in­to sim­ple sil­hou­ettes, in free-flow­ing fash­ions and on t-shirts, in state­ment-mak­ing style.

The cli­max of the evening was the wear­able art col­lec­tion com­ing out of the Cho­sen Hands Art and Well­ness pro­gramme at St Jude’s School for Girls. These as­pir­ing artists strut­ted, ac­com­pa­nied by the hyp­not­ic voice of Muham­mad Muwak­il of Free­town Col­lec­tive, with the emo­tive, ‘feel the love’, The evening closed with an ex­al­ta­tion to live, love and laugh, as art ex­plic­it­ly re­ver­ber­ates.