Fay­ola K J Fras­er

Fash­ion in T&T and the wider Caribbean has al­ways been a unique and out­stand­ing blend of cul­tur­al in­flu­ences, re­flect­ing the re­gion’s rich his­to­ry and adap­ta­tion to the cli­mate.

Con­tem­po­rary fash­ion trends in­ter­min­gle with light, soft ma­te­ri­als, in­ter­spersed with the is­lands’ sig­na­ture of bold colours and in­tri­cate de­signs. The fash­ion in­dus­try in T&T has been grow­ing steadi­ly, with lo­cal de­sign­ers gain­ing recog­ni­tion re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly for their in­no­v­a­tive and cul­tur­al­ly rich cre­ations.

Sherk­i­la John, a 23-year-old re­cent grad­u­ate from UTT with a Bach­e­lor’s de­gree in Fine Arts and Fash­ion De­sign, is emerg­ing on­to the scene as a new de­sign­er to watch in T&T. She has un­veiled her fi­nal the­sis col­lec­tion that merges two dis­tinct gen­res: “Lovecore and Streetwear.”

She was able to take on the chal­lenge of in­te­grat­ing streetwear—a style vast­ly dif­fer­ent from her usu­al cre­ations—in­to her work. She aimed to blend these op­pos­ing gen­res har­mo­nious­ly, achiev­ing this through a metic­u­lous fo­cus on colour, fab­ric com­bi­na­tions, and fab­ric ma­nip­u­la­tion.

The re­sult is a new sub­genre that cap­ti­vates and in­trigues, show­cas­ing John’s in­no­v­a­tive ap­proach and com­mit­ment to push­ing cre­ative bound­aries. Her col­lec­tion stands as a tes­ta­ment to her abil­i­ty to merge con­trast­ing styles in­to a co­he­sive and com­ple­men­tary fash­ion state­ment.

On the night of her show, John cel­e­brat­ed her achieve­ment not on­ly as the de­sign­er of her col­lec­tion but al­so as the cre­ator. She sewed all the gar­ments in her col­lec­tion as well as her out­fit on the night. Al­though John mod­est­ly said that she “still has to prac­tise cer­tain as­pects of my sewing,” the flaw­less out­fits left no traces of any­thing oth­er than her ex­per­tise.

John was al­ways drawn to fash­ion, as she re­calls be­ing be­tween four and five years old, lov­ing clothes, style and fash­ion, and know­ing that she want­ed to de­sign clothes. “I took a de­tour in sec­ondary school, but I came right back to fash­ion,” she says, as when it was time to de­cide on a ter­tiary pro­gramme, she im­me­di­ate­ly se­lect­ed UTT’s Fash­ion de­gree. Feel­ing that she was steeped in her pur­pose through­out her de­gree, she con­tin­ued to fall in love with fash­ion.

“My love is cre­at­ing clothes, mix­ing and min­gling clothes. Clothes are the biggest in­spi­ra­tion in my life.”

Dur­ing her de­gree, aside from learn­ing the fash­ion in­dus­try more in­ti­mate­ly, she gained valu­able skills in time man­age­ment that she now em­ploys in the work­ing world. Walk­ing through her cre­ative process, John said that her cre­ativ­i­ty was her best skill, and will be her lega­cy in the fash­ion world.

“My friends in the course told me that even though every­one doesn’t al­ways see my vi­sion, the way I con­cep­tu­alise my de­signs, I make them come to­geth­er.”

She be­gins with an in­spi­ra­tion, which could be some­thing as sim­ple as a flower petal, and builds a col­lec­tion out of that in­spi­ra­tion. “I love fab­ric ma­nip­u­la­tion and I aim to have all the de­signs in my col­lec­tion be a dif­fer­ent vari­a­tion that repli­cates my orig­i­nal in­spi­ra­tion.”

Dur­ing the sewing process, she tends to some­times change the orig­i­nal de­sign and piv­ot where nec­es­sary based on what is pos­si­ble. Self-iden­ti­fy­ing as a “per­fec­tion­ist”,  she mus­es that the plight of fash­ion de­sign­ers is want­i­ng to con­tin­ue fix­ing and chang­ing de­signs ad in­fini­tum un­til they’re ex­act­ly right.

How­ev­er, her learn­ing process has taught her that “it is in my con­trol to say when a de­sign is as good as it is, rather than seek­ing ab­solute per­fec­tion.”

Dri­ven in her pur­suit of suc­cess, she hopes to one day open her own fash­ion brand and com­pa­ny af­ter spend­ing time learn­ing from the best in the in­dus­try and grow­ing as a de­sign­er.

Present­ly, she works un­der a lo­cal de­sign­er to hone and craft her skills and learn valu­able tools such as fash­ion mar­ket­ing and man­age­ment.

At 23, John is al­ready mak­ing waves in the fash­ion in­dus­try and has re­ceived ac­co­lades both in per­son and on so­cial me­dia for her de­but col­lec­tion as a cul­mi­na­tion of her de­gree at UTT.

Wear­ing her big and bold as­pi­ra­tions on her sleeve, she is find­ing her niche as a young de­sign­er, sure­ly bound for the fore­front of the fash­ion in­dus­try.