“Pas­sion is en­er­gy. Feel the pow­er that comes from fo­cus­ing on what ex­cites you.”

~ Oprah Win­frey  

Dr Safeeya Mo­hammed

At the in­ter­sec­tion of fash­ion, en­tre­pre­neur­ship, and pas­sion lies the un­fold­ing of Shiv­onne Subero’s dreams. From a hum­ble back­ground, born in Trinidad, and raised in Venezuela as a child, Subero shares, “The things I am achiev­ing now I nev­er thought I was ca­pa­ble of ac­com­plish­ing, but if you can see it in your mind, you can hold it in your hands.”   

Through the en­tre­pre­neur­ial jour­ney as a child, from as young as age five, Subero ab­sorbed the ex­pe­ri­ences of her fa­ther’s shoe and cloth­ing store. Her en­gag­ing per­sona caught the at­ten­tion of cus­tomers and some­times, just those sim­ple en­gage­ments would lead to sales with­in the store. “They would stop and talk to the tod­dler just sit­ting by the shoe dis­plays. Even at that age, I would pas­sion­ate­ly share de­tails about the shoes in the store and I don’t think there was any­one that left with­out mak­ing a pur­chase!

“I was born in­to a fam­i­ly of en­tre­pre­neurs. My fa­ther, to me, was the most amaz­ing sales­man. As a child I’d ob­serve him, I’d see him swift­ly start a con­ver­sa­tion with cus­tomers, and have them try­ing on and buy­ing sev­er­al pairs of shoes by the end of the in­ter­ac­tion! He was per­son­able, charm­ing, and con­fi­dent.

“My step­mom ded­i­cat­ed time to en­sur­ing I un­der­stood colour com­bi­na­tions. I’d dress and un­dress a man­nequin about ten times a day. If it did not sell, we’ll try oth­er en­sem­bles and en­sure it was ap­peal­ing to cus­tomers. Most im­por­tant­ly, she taught me how to lis­ten and in­ter­act with the cus­tomers and sug­gest items ac­cord­ing to their needs, oc­ca­sion, and body type.”

 There­fore, it was a nat­ur­al ca­reer path, choos­ing to blend her pas­sion for fash­ion with her mar­ket­ing train­ing and cre­ate her fash­ion la­bel, Shiv­onne Subero La­bel, to de­vel­op a sus­tain­able, eth­i­cal fash­ion brand that cre­ates time­less de­signs for any sil­hou­ette, en­sur­ing women feel con­fi­dent and so­phis­ti­cat­ed.

 “We de­sign for any body type, as we be­lieve every woman should have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to feel beau­ti­ful and self-as­sured.” 

Eth­i­cal fash­ion is key to the SS La­bel. In re­cent times, there has been out­rage and a call for ac­count­abil­i­ty in the world of fash­ion. Peo­ple are now pay­ing more at­ten­tion to the clothes they wear, what con­di­tions sur­round­ed the cre­ation of those clothes, what ma­te­ri­als were used, and what in­spired the de­signs.

 Eth­i­cal fash­ion is the de­sign, pro­duc­tion, and dis­tri­b­u­tion of fash­ion items fo­cused on re­duc­ing harm to peo­ple and the plan­et at large.

“With eth­i­cal pro­duc­tion stan­dards, our work­ers work in an en­vi­ron­ment that en­cour­ages cre­ativ­i­ty and orig­i­nal­i­ty of de­signs. Eth­i­cal fash­ion is the an­swer to the neg­a­tive im­pact the world of fash­ion has on the plan­et and the peo­ple in it, and the SS La­bel holds eth­i­cal fash­ion as a pil­lar to our brand,” Subero says.

“More than any­thing, we un­der­stand the pow­er of com­mu­ni­ty and its abil­i­ty to fos­ter cre­ativ­i­ty and ex­cel­lence. A mix­ture of Trinida­di­an lo­cals and im­mi­grants make up our vi­brant team that has grown to be­come a fam­i­ly. To dri­ve our stance for eth­i­cal work cul­ture, we part­ner with lo­cal NGOs like the TTV Sol­i­dar­i­ty Net­work–a plat­form found­ed in 2018 to pro­mote the hu­man rights of Venezue­lan im­mi­grants in Trinidad and To­ba­go. We’ve al­so joined forces with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT) to work with cre­ative minds and build a brand that trea­sures di­ver­si­ty and in­clu­sion.”

Style ad­vice

Search­ing for one’s style, your ad­vice?

“Build wardrobe cap­sules, pieces that are time­less, colours and prints that can be re-matched, and if need be, try cre­at­ing Pin­ter­est boards for styling your out­fits, un­til your con­fi­dence grows.

“But most im­por­tant­ly, love your­self dai­ly. Then throw on any­thing that can help you in­crease that feel­ing. I dress ac­cord­ing to my mood, pri­ori­tise com­fort, and then analyse the day to see what en­vi­ron­ment I’ll be in. So, wake up, look at your­self in the mir­ror, and say I love you, I val­ue you, I am proud of you.

“Check in with your­self, how are you feel­ing? Where are you head­ing to­day? In my ex­pe­ri­ence, you can be styl­ish and com­fort­able, and re­mem­ber, your per­son­al­i­ty de­fines your style.” 

Ad­vice to fel­low en­tre­pre­neurs?

“My ad­vice to fel­low en­tre­pre­neurs: Dream big, do what is right, and do not look to the side. Lis­ten to those that love and care for you, and take con­struc­tive crit­i­cism. Re­mem­ber to jump out­side of your com­fort zone from time to time. To make it in this life you got to help oth­ers.

“Treat your­self, but do not in­crease your lifestyle as your in­come goes up, de­cide to build fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty, and then use your good for­tune to help and re-in­vest. Fi­nal­ly, live in grat­i­tude and cel­e­brate all wins, no mat­ter how small.”