Kristy Ram­nar­ine grew up in Tabaquite, a co­coa vil­lage lo­cat­ed in Cen­tral Trinidad, which in­stilled in her a love for the out­doors and na­ture. Dur­ing her school­ing her love for the Eng­lish Lan­guage en­cour­aged her to write. Her ob­vi­ous ca­reer path was jour­nal­ism.

Her first me­dia stint was at TTT where she start­ed work­ing in 2001 un­til the com­pa­ny’s clo­sure in 2005. At the Guardian news­pa­per, she honed her skills as a writer, find­ing a niche in en­vi­ron­men­tal and tourism re­port­ing for which she won sev­er­al awards. It was dur­ing this time she start­ed work­ing with the Car­ni­val band TRIBE as a pub­lic re­la­tions ad­vi­sor, get­ting her feet wet in event man­age­ment. Her ca­reer path pre­pared her for en­try in­to new me­dia at Trinidad Ex­press, where, as part of the in­ter­ac­tive news team, she pro­duced, edit­ed and pre­sent­ed two-minute in­ter­ac­tive bul­letins for the Trinidad Ex­press web­site. In 2015, she moved to CNC3, an arm of Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed where she was re­spon­si­ble for the pro­duc­tion of the Week­end News. Over the years, she has con­tin­u­ous­ly worked on putting to­geth­er events, which on­ly made her tran­si­tion from pro­duc­er to Event Man­ag­er at Guardian Me­dia a seam­less one.

Fash­ion de­sign­ing has al­ways been a dream and a pas­sion of hers. Kristy ex­press­es that her moth­er is a very tal­ent­ed woman and from a very young age be­ing able to look at her de­sign and sew cloth­ing al­ways in­spired her to do the same. Al­though their tal­ents are dif­fer­ent and Kristy nev­er picked up sewing, she def­i­nite­ly got her moth­er’s sense of style. That fash­ion sense con­tin­ued when she em­braced dress­ing mod­est­ly in 2014, fol­low­ing her mar­riage to Fuad Abu Bakr. As it was very dif­fi­cult to source trendy, fash­ion­able cloth­ing, Kristy of­ten de­signed out­fits and had her mum sew them. Added to Kristy’s pro­fes­sion­al ac­com­plish­ments, to­day she is the proud own and founder of Za­mani Caribbean, mod­est fash­ions for the trendy woman. In an in­ter­view with the WE Mag team, Kristy shared a bit about the ex­pe­ri­ence of launch­ing her own line. Here’s what she shared with us:

Andrea De Silva Villaruel

Tell us about Za­mani Caribbean, what is keep­ing you ex­cit­ed?

Some­time af­ter Car­ni­val 2019, I dis­cussed my dream of launch­ing a mod­est cloth­ing line with busi­ness­man Fred Chin Lee who re­cent­ly died. It was a dis­cus­sion I felt com­fort­able hav­ing, af­ter see­ing Mr Chin Lee’s self­less at­tempts to pro­mote lo­cal ar­ti­sans and de­sign­ers. Then, be­fore you know it, he was there en­cour­ag­ing me to take the leap. On Oc­to­ber 26, 2019, Za­mani Caribbean be­came a re­al­i­ty. Za­mani Caribbean is a mod­est cloth­ing line which caters for all women. With the aim of mak­ing women feel con­fi­dent and com­fort­able Za­mani Caribbean us­es colour­ful blends of fab­ric bought and sewn right here in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

What was your biggest fear when go­ing out and

start­ing your own line?

It’s not just about start­ing a line but a mod­est fash­ion line. “Mod­est fash­ion” refers to cloth­ing which con­ceals, rather than ac­cen­tu­ates the body. Dress­es that sweep the floor, sleeves which pass the wrist and neck­lines which rise to the chin. Part of me won­dered whether or not I was mak­ing the right de­ci­sion. Whether mod­est fash­ion would sell lo­cal­ly.

But in­ter­na­tion­al­ly mod­est fash­ion was mak­ing in­roads. In Sep­tem­ber, Nike launched its first cam­paign with a hi­jab-wear­ing am­bas­sador. And last Sep­tem­ber, Hal­i­ma Aden be­came the first hi­jab-wear­ing mod­el to grace the cov­er of British Vogue. The main­stream­ing of mod­est fash­ion was tak­ing place. There­fore what bet­ter time to launch my very own line. The name says it all Za­mani (My Time).

What is your ul­ti­mate goal or biggest dream for your fu­ture?

God has blessed me with mul­ti­ple gifts. I am a wife, moth­er, writer and an event plan­ner. Now, I’m a fash­ion de­sign­er. My aim is to con­tin­ue us­ing my God giv­en tal­ents to grow the Za­mani Caribbean brand and at the same time be the best wife and moth­er that I could be.

Andrea De Silva Villaruel

Why do you do what you do?

You have to love what you do in or­der to do it. Of course I love life and I love do­ing what I do. I love pen­ning words which in­spire peo­ple, plan­ning pro­fes­sion­al events and see­ing peo­ple en­joy them­selves at them; and de­sign­ing clothes which make women feel con­fi­dent. Chic, com­fort­able mod­est cloth­ing with a Caribbean flair.

Do you have any ad­vice for women who may want to ven­ture in­to mod­est fash­ion de­sign or fash­ion de­sign­ing in gen­er­al?

If it’s your dream, work on it un­til it be­comes a re­al­i­ty. Fash­ion search plat­form Lyst re­leased its Year in Fash­ion 2019 re­port which re­vealed that in­ter­net search­es for mod­est fash­ion have risen by 90 per cent in the last year. Ac­cord­ing to The Wash­ing­ton Post, the mod­est fash­ion in­dus­try is slot­ted to make $373 bil­lion in 2022. Mod­est fash­ion is now main­stream, it’s a trend which will con­tin­ue to grow. Za­mani (My time) can be your time as well!