Dr Safeeya Mo­hammed

guardian.wemagazine@gmail.com

 At the in­ter­sec­tion of tal­ent and ded­i­ca­tion, you will find Lisa Big­ford!

The metic­u­lous na­ture of each cre­ation trans­lates in­to a wear­able piece, af­ter hours of her at­ten­tion. Each piece is unique­ly de­signed and hand-paint­ed, and then spe­cif­ic gar­ment treat­ments are ap­plied to en­sure the paint ad­heres to the fab­ric. The process is de­tailed and time con­sum­ing, how­ev­er, Big­ford shares, “When her clients first see their piece, their amaze­ment and ex­u­ber­ance make the process all worth­while.”

These in­tri­cate works of wear­able art are con­cep­tu­alised from sev­er­al ar­eas of in­spi­ra­tion; the vi­bran­cy of the Caribbean flo­ra be­ing the main one. The per­son­al­i­ties of her clients al­so play a sig­nif­i­cant part in the cre­ative process. One such client, her cousin, well-known jazz vo­cal­ist and en­ter­tain­ment en­tre­pre­neur Vaugh­nette Big­ford shares her ado­ra­tion for the es­tab­lished brand, Nadroj.

“Lisa has al­ways been in­to fash­ion and beau­ty and of course, I love that my­self. I wear her pieces most­ly be­cause I think it’s wear­able art. I’m an ad­vo­cate for wear­ing lo­cal and we grow up in de same house, it cyah get more lo­cal than that,” Vaugh­nette said.

The gen­e­sis of Nadroj

“I want­ed to cre­ate some­thing unique and a lega­cy for my son, Jor­dan. Many names were con­sid­ered, but his essence had to be part of the cre­ation. ‘Nadroj’ is his name spelt in re­verse.”

 Nadroj has been present in mul­ti­ple fash­ion shows across Trinidad, in­clud­ing the promi­nent San Fer­nan­do Fash­ion Week. She gives praise to her home­town La Brea, as her tribe of sup­port orig­i­nat­ed with­in the com­mu­ni­ty and then ex­tend­ed wide­ly.

Big­ford shares, “One of her fore­most men­tors is Omzad Khan,” part of the de­sign duo Zadd and East­man of Point Fortin. “His in­sight­ful ad­vice still to this day im­pacts pos­i­tive­ly on my cre­ations.”

Earn­ing the re­spect and con­sid­er­a­tion of many fash­ion­istas across the T&T land­scape, Big­ford shared, “I al­ways con­sid­er my client feed­back, that’s how my busi­ness has grown and in­no­vat­ed across the years.”

One re­peat client said, “I feel like a queen, so­phis­ti­cat­ed and ex­quis­ite in these pieces. The pieces make a state­ment every time I step in­to a crowd. And who doesn’t want your fash­ion piece to be a show-stop­per?”

Con­fi­dence comes from with­in

Big­ford wants to con­tin­ue de­sign­ing for our lo­cal land­scape as she loves see­ing women achieve the best ver­sion of them­selves. Her next step, see­ing her pieces in an In­ter­na­tion­al Fash­ion Week and be­ing ad­mired glob­al­ly.

 Her ad­vice to women on build­ing their wardrobe: “Find­ing one’s per­son­al style is im­por­tant to cu­rat­ing your state­ment pieces. If some­thing in­side you comes alive when you wear an out­fit, if your walk sud­den­ly gets stronger and you feel ex­cep­tion­al­ly beau­ti­ful by your own stan­dard, know that you have found your per­son­al style and hold on to it, hold on to it tight!”

 To con­tact Lisa Big­ford

 FB | IG: @nadro­jtt

 Email: nadro­jtt1@gmail.com