At Las Cuevas, the colours of Trinidad and To­ba­go take on a fash­ion­able new ex­pres­sion in Bel­mont de­sign­er Saleem Samuel’s lat­est swimwear col­lec­tion, Love Coun­try.

Bold, strik­ing and un­mis­tak­ably pa­tri­ot­ic, the col­lec­tion draws in­spi­ra­tion from the na­tion­al flag, trans­lat­ing its red, white and black in­to a se­ries of swimwear looks de­signed to cel­e­brate both style and na­tion­al pride.

For Samuel, the colours car­ry mean­ings that go be­yond aes­thet­ics. Red rep­re­sents the en­er­gy, warmth and courage of the peo­ple; white sym­bol­is­es pu­ri­ty and the sea; while black re­flects the strength, uni­ty and ded­i­ca­tion of the na­tion.

To­geth­er, they form the vi­su­al lan­guage of Love Coun­try—a col­lec­tion that cel­e­brates the vi­brant spir­it of Trinidad and To­ba­go while keep­ing the de­signs ac­ces­si­ble, com­fort­able and con­tem­po­rary.

De­signed for both men and women, the col­lec­tion em­braces a va­ri­ety of sizes, styles and tastes. Samuel takes a less-is-more ap­proach, pair­ing sim­ple sil­hou­ettes with so­phis­ti­cat­ed de­tails to cre­ate pieces that are both fash­ion­able and func­tion­al.

The swimwear is de­signed to move eas­i­ly be­tween set­tings, whether it is be­ing worn for a day at the beach, a pool­side gath­er­ing or a more in­ti­mate, ro­man­tic oc­ca­sion.

Adding an­oth­er lay­er of ver­sa­til­i­ty are flow­ing chif­fon jack­ets, which com­ple­ment the swimwear while pro­vid­ing an ef­fort­less fin­ish­ing touch. The light­weight pieces can trans­form a swimwear look in­to a more pol­ished en­sem­ble, al­low­ing the wear­er to move seam­less­ly from the wa­ter to so­cial set­tings.

The re­sult is a col­lec­tion that does not re­ly on com­pli­cat­ed de­sign to make an im­pres­sion. In­stead, Samuel al­lows colour, sil­hou­ette and styling to take cen­tre stage.

The Love Coun­try col­lec­tion al­so re­flects an un­der­stand­ing that swimwear is about more than sim­ply dress­ing for the wa­ter. It is about con­fi­dence, in­di­vid­u­al­i­ty and feel­ing com­fort­able in one’s own skin.

Through the col­lec­tion, Samuel brings to­geth­er those qual­i­ties with a dis­tinct­ly Trinidad and To­ba­go iden­ti­ty.

The Las Cuevas set­ting pro­vides a nat­ur­al back­drop for the de­signs, re­in­forc­ing the con­nec­tion be­tween the col­lec­tion and the sea rep­re­sent­ed by the white of the na­tion­al flag.

The cam­paign fea­tures mod­els Ca­ri­na Mar­tin, Sarah Leigh Mor­ris and Kegan Gul­ston, pho­tographed by Edi­son Boodoos­ingh.

Against the coastal land­scape, the red, white and black pieces be­come an ex­ten­sion of the en­vi­ron­ment and the na­tion­al iden­ti­ty they rep­re­sent.