Sama­ki Fe­li­cian

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

“I want to bring Car­ni­val to the run­ways!” This is the as­pi­ra­tion that en­tre­pre­neur San­dra Hor­datt hopes to achieve for her de­sign­er busi­ness called San­disAn­gels. Hor­datt has been trans­form­ing the world of Car­ni­val cos­tumes for over 20 years, and her cre­ativ­i­ty, re­silience, and faith have pro­pelled her to launch the brand dur­ing one of the most chal­leng­ing pe­ri­ods in mod­ern his­to­ry, the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Born and raised in St James, Hor­datt grew up in a cre­ative en­vi­ron­ment. Her moth­er, an ac­com­plished seam­stress with her own sewing shop, served as Hor­datt’s first in­spi­ra­tion. Watch­ing her moth­er sew, flip hous­es to make ends meet, and man­age her house­hold, Hor­datt learnt the val­ue of hard work and en­tre­pre­neur­ship.

“She ac­tu­al­ly had her own lit­tle sewing shop, where she had like two em­ploy­ees, and I would spend a lot of my time there just with her mak­ing dol­ly clothes, draw­ing, and just be­ing very cre­ative in her en­vi­ron­ment, and she al­ways pushed me; I guess she saw the po­ten­tial in me from young,” Hor­datt ex­plained.

Over the years, her love for Car­ni­val cos­tumes grew in­to a suc­cess­ful ca­reer, de­sign­ing for car­ni­vals world­wide. How­ev­er, the pan­dem­ic brought the Car­ni­val in­dus­try to a halt; with man­u­fac­tur­ing shut down and no events to pre­pare for, Hor­datt found her­self at a cross­roads. Rather than give in to the un­cer­tain­ty, Hor­datt tapped in­to her dreams to start her own busi­ness and make a piv­ot. “Even though man­u­fac­tur­ing had shut down, be­cause I was very close to the pro­duc­ers in the in­dus­try, now every­body is out of work, so I had a full team ba­si­cal­ly be­cause peo­ple need­ed jobs. I had a full pro­duc­tion team, I had fab­ric, I had every­thing kind of ready to go; it was just to make the leap and do it,” she said.

Since start­ing San­disAn­gels, she set out to turn her pas­sion in­to a glob­al brand as her faith in God played a piv­otal role in her jour­ney.

“In De­cem­ber 2023, it was the end of the year, and I made a promise to God that for 2024 if he opens doors for me, I will leap through them fear­less­ly,” she said. That promise was test­ed in Jan­u­ary 2024 when she re­ceived an in­vi­ta­tion to show­case her de­signs at a fash­ion show called Run­way Sev­en.

Hor­datt was ini­tial­ly hes­i­tant due to the event be­ing on the same day as Car­ni­val Fri­day, but she re­mem­bered her com­mit­ment to God and de­cid­ed to seize the op­por­tu­ni­ty. With de­ter­mi­na­tion and fo­cus, she cre­at­ed a six-piece cap­sule col­lec­tion for the show, mark­ing her de­but at one of the world’s most pres­ti­gious fash­ion plat­forms.

The suc­cess of her first show­case fu­elled her dri­ve, lead­ing to an in­vi­ta­tion to present a full col­lec­tion of eight pieces lat­er that year at the New York Fash­ion Week in Sep­tem­ber 2024. This fash­ion week is renowned as one of the top four glob­al events along­side Paris, Mi­lan, and Lon­don.

Show­cas­ing at the fash­ion week was a turn­ing point for Hor­datt, as her de­signs, in­spired by the vi­brant colours and en­er­gy of Car­ni­val, opened doors to new op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“Since New York Fash­ion Week, I’ve been in­vit­ed to do Paris in Feb­ru­ary; I’ve al­so been in­vit­ed to do Mi­lan. It would be so great to fly the Trinidad and To­ba­go flag in­ter­na­tion­al­ly like this and bring Car­ni­val to the fash­ion stage,” she said.

She en­vi­sions tak­ing Mon­day wear out­fits, worn dur­ing Car­ni­val, to in­ter­na­tion­al events like Burn­ing Man and Coachel­la. Hor­datt al­so dreams of ex­pand­ing her brand to in­clude cus­tom pieces for brides and oth­er grand oc­ca­sions. The en­tre­pre­neur’s main fo­cus right now is Trinidad’s 2025 Car­ni­val. “As it is right now, I am prepar­ing for Trinidad Car­ni­val, and we can ex­pect a lot of new stuff from San­disAn­gels,” she said.

When asked what keeps her mo­ti­vat­ed to keep push­ing, her re­sponse gave all the cred­it to God. “I will have to say col­lab­o­rat­ing with God has made the brand grow faster, and it has kept me go­ing be­cause some­times you feel like you have to de­pend on oth­er hu­man be­ings, but it’s re­al­ly the Lord,” she ex­plained.

Hor­datt’s sto­ry is one of re­silience, cre­ativ­i­ty, and an un­wa­ver­ing be­lief in the pow­er of dreams. Through San­disAn­gels, she is not on­ly el­e­vat­ing Car­ni­val cul­ture to in­ter­na­tion­al run­ways but al­so in­spir­ing oth­ers to em­brace their pas­sions and take bold leaps of faith.