Fay­ola K J Fras­er

Trinidad Car­ni­val, de­scribed by Kan­di King as “the Mec­ca of all Car­ni­vals,” can be found per­fect­ly placed at the cul­tur­al in­ter­sec­tion of beau­ti­ful fash­ions, in­tri­cate de­signs, deep-root­ed his­to­ries, and pow­er­ful mu­sic. Al­though this fes­ti­val has in­spired many in­ter­na­tion­al car­ni­vals across the globe, it has yet to find its foot­ing in tele­vi­sion me­dia, un­til now. “Car­ni­val Cat­walk”, which pre­mièred on Jan­u­ary 9, 2025, is a new re­al­i­ty fash­ion com­pe­ti­tion show that brings all the el­e­ments of Car­ni­val to­geth­er, head­lined with cut­ting-edge Caribbean fash­ion, be­ing broad­cast on Flow across the re­gion, CNC3 and TVJ (in Ja­maica).

Kan­di King, a busi­ness own­er, a long-time lover of Car­ni­val, and a sea­soned, charis­mat­ic me­dia pro­fes­sion­al who co-hosts the show, sits with Guardian Me­dia to re­flect on her jour­ney as one of the stand­out women in the Car­ni­val in­dus­try.

“One of my ear­li­est mem­o­ries of Car­ni­val in Ja­maica was see­ing my par­ents play mas here. Every­thing looked so ex­cit­ing as a child, so fun.”

King, born and raised in Kingston, Ja­maica, knew that as soon as she was “of age,” her first pri­or­i­ty would be not on­ly to get on the road to play mas in Ja­maica but al­so some­how find her way to Trinidad.

When she be­gan work­ing her first cor­po­rate job, King pri­ori­tised putting mon­ey aside and touched down in Trinidad Car­ni­val in 2012, ready to have what she would re­mem­ber as “the time of my life.”

The fol­low­ing year, she be­came the un­of­fi­cial li­ai­son for Trinidad Car­ni­val as many peo­ple, both re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, asked for her help to plan their Trinidad Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ence. Ever en­tre­pre­neuri­al­ly mind­ed, King knew that the next step was to trans­late her un­of­fi­cial Car­ni­val li­ai­son role in­to a full-blown concierge busi­ness, which she de­buted the fol­low­ing year, pro­vid­ing clients with fete tick­ets, cos­tumes, ac­com­mo­da­tion, and trans­porta­tion.

She in­tend­ed for the busi­ness to pro­vide a sup­ple­men­tary in­come as she still was em­ployed in a cor­po­rate job, but she was sub­se­quent­ly made re­dun­dant and took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to step brave­ly in­to the Car­ni­val in­dus­try full-time. In 2016, King formed a Car­ni­val band in Ja­maica, and af­ter two years ful­ly in­te­grat­ed in­to Car­ni­val, she birthed her land­mark prod­uct, stocK­INGS by Kan­di.

At the core of all her roles, King is an in­no­va­tor. The prob­lem of the un­sight­ly stock­ings hoist­ed well above the band of the Car­ni­val cos­tume bot­tom piece un­nerved her, and she for­mu­lat­ed an in­no­v­a­tive so­lu­tion—the V-Kut Stock­ing. The V-Kut StocK­ING trans­formed the Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ence for women re­gion­al­ly and glob­al­ly, ad­dress­ing a qualm of­ten faced by the con­tem­po­rary mas­quer­ad­er. The tra­di­tion­al stock­ing band ob­struct­ed the full beau­ty and in­tri­ca­cy of to­day’s cos­tumes and Mon­day wear, but King’s adap­ta­tion of the tra­di­tion­al stock­ing with a V cut in both the front and the back of­fered women en­hanced com­fort and style while mas­querad­ing. Demon­strat­ing her keen busi­ness sen­si­bil­i­ties, she sought an in­dus­tri­al de­sign pro­tec­tion on her stock­ing so that it would not be repli­cat­ed.

In 2024, King took on yet an­oth­er chal­lenge of the fe­male mas­quer­ad­er—hav­ing to re­move stock­ings to use the bath­room—with her laud­ed, well-re­ceived cre­ation, the P-Kut Stock­ing, which has an adap­ta­tion that al­lows women com­fort and con­ve­nience.

“The idea for the stock­ings com­plete­ly changed the tra­jec­to­ry of my life,” she mus­es. “Be­ing a band leader was glam­orous but ex­treme­ly de­mand­ing, labour-in­ten­sive, and came with fi­nan­cial con­straints.” Af­ter her de­vel­op­ment of the V-Kut stock­ing, she has con­tin­ued to de­sign ac­ces­sories such as the Knip­sies un­der her brand Kar­ni­val by Kan­di, all with the in­ten­tion of al­low­ing women to feel and look their best on the road.

This is King’s pur­pose and what she hopes to be her lega­cy. Her mis­sion is not to change any of the core tenets of Car­ni­val but to har­ness her cre­ativ­i­ty to con­tin­ue to pi­o­neer new so­lu­tions that en­hance women’s Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ence. In 2023, she was in­vit­ed to be a host of Car­ni­val Cat­walk by en­ter­tain­er Jerome “Rome” Pre­cil­la, pro­duc­er of the show.

“I al­ways knew that if I wasn’t pur­su­ing Car­ni­val, I would pur­sue me­dia,” she says, as a for­mer host on var­i­ous tele­vi­sion shows. As her Car­ni­val ca­reer took off, how­ev­er, she put me­dia on the back burn­er, but when asked to host the show, she knew it was the per­fect op­por­tu­ni­ty to mar­ry her two pro­fes­sion­al pas­sions. King spent five weeks in Sep­tem­ber 2023 film­ing in Trinidad, “fi­nal­ly able to wit­ness so­ca, Car­ni­val, and de­sign com­ing to­geth­er on the big screen.”

Some­times plagued by the thought of be­ing con­sid­ered an out­sider, as a Ja­maican, she re­flects on how lov­ing­ly she was wel­comed in­to the pro­duc­tion, say­ing, “Every­one who was a part of the project treat­ed me like roy­al­ty. I felt so hap­py to be part of it.”

Now that the show has pre­mièred, she hopes that every­one can watch and en­joy it and learn more—as she did—about the cul­ture and his­to­ry of Car­ni­val. “It’s so deep-root­ed; the world will get to see that it’s not just biki­nis and beads. It’s a cul­tur­al ex­plo­ration, and each episode taps in­to a dif­fer­ent as­pect of Car­ni­val.

I can’t wait for peo­ple across the re­gion and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly to get an in­sight in­to the ex­pe­ri­ence that is Trinidad Car­ni­val.” She re­sists the no­tion that there should be no com­pe­ti­tion or fric­tion over var­i­ous car­ni­vals in the re­gion, as they all have their unique ap­peal, and sees the show as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to “stand unit­ed and bring Car­ni­val in all its ex­cite­ment and lib­er­a­tion to the fore­front.”

King is now the head of mar­ket­ing for the Car­ni­val band Xo­dus in Ja­maica, and as she con­tin­ues to add to her achieve­ments, one might won­der how she bal­ances her work, busi­ness, and be­ing the moth­er to a beau­ti­ful and live­ly four-year-old daugh­ter. “There’s no bal­anc­ing,” she laughs. “I’m not afraid to say this. When one thing thrives, the oth­er thing doesn’t; that’s the na­ture of how it goes.” Al­though she is a present and in­ten­tion­al moth­er, she al­so does not hes­i­tate to re­ly on her vil­lage, in­clud­ing her hus­band of four years and her par­ents, who are ac­tive grand­par­ents in her daugh­ter’s life.

“I’ve been in this Car­ni­val in­dus­try for so long; now with Car­ni­val Cat­walk, I get to scream and shout about my love for Car­ni­val.” Hav­ing ful­ly em­braced not on­ly the eu­pho­ria of the road ex­pe­ri­ence but al­so the back­end of hard work, or­gan­i­sa­tion, and prepa­ra­tion, Kan­di King is a true con­nois­seur in the re­gion­al Car­ni­val scene.

Her pas­sion and tire­less ef­forts have con­tin­ued to un­der­pin the evo­lu­tion of the Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ence, and her in­no­va­tions cre­ate waves of im­pact for mas­quer­aders on the road.