Zahra Gor­don

Omzad Khan and Nigel East­man of the de­sign duo Zadd and East­man say they're dis­ap­point­ed this year's Trinidad and To­ba­go Fash­ion Week was can­celled. But with a suc­cess­ful show­ing of the Zadd and East­man Re­sort col­lec­tion at Caribbean Fash­ion Week in

Ja­maica be­hind them and weeks of con­tact-build­ing while at­tend­ing high-pow­er events like New York Fash­ion Week and The Mag­ic Show in Las Ve­gas, not to men­tion a con­tin­ued de­mand for cus­tom cloth­ing, the de­sign­ers say they'll make do.

The Point Fortin-based team gave their re­tail store a facelift ear­li­er this year by re­lo­cat­ing-al­beit on­ly one build­ing over on the Cap-de-Ville Road, in the heart of the bustling South­ern bor­ough, close to a hard­ware and the WASA cus­tomer ser­vice of­fice. The facelift in­clud­ed up­grad­ing light­ing, con­sol­i­dat­ing space, paint­ing, lots of trendy fix­tures and two com­fy di­vans. The pair has al­so stream­lined pro­duc­tion.

Above the re­tail space is the bou­tique where de­sign, sketch­ing, fit­ting and the ac­tu­al sewing take place. Khan calls it a "lit­tle sweat­shop" where on av­er­age ten em­ploy­ees work to con­struct gar­ments. East­man says this space is just as "sa­cred" as the run­way. "As a lo­cal de­sign­er in this mar­ket you have to do what you can to sur­vive, which is why we do re­tail. There are oth­ers who have to make uni­forms, who do what­ev­er they have to sup­port their art," ex­plained East­man who dou­bles as a sec­ondary school art teacher.

Twelve years af­ter they col­lab­o­rat­ed on what they call their sig­na­ture line-hand-paint­ed tan, brown and beige linens-they con­tin­ue to cater to the el­e­gant and glam­orous Caribbean woman. "That is our clien­tele: the woman who un­der­stand fash­ion, who wants to be wow," says East­man. East­man point­ed out that most of their cus­tom de­signs go to women from Port-of-Spain and en­vi­rons, all of whom are will­ing to make the dri­ve down South to get that wow fac­tor. Yet, there are those who live in the area, friends and neigh­bours, who have be­come loy­al cus­tomers. These women come as fam­i­ly: moth­ers who've shopped with Zadd and East­man for years and in­tro­duced their daugh­ters to the line and re­tail store. They come back for spe­cial oc­ca­sions like an­niver­saries and, most im­por­tant­ly, wed­dings, where Khan says most of their in­come is made. When the Sun­day Arts Sec­tion vis­it­ed the duo the fi­nal touch­es were be­ing put on a black silk chif­fon brides­maid dress.

One loy­al cus­tomer is jazz singer Vaugh­nette Big­ford, who lives in near­by La Brea, 20 min­utes from the shop. She wears their clothes for all her ma­jor per­for­mances. The Big­fords-Vaugh­nette, her moth­er, aunts, sis­ters and nieces-al­so call on Zadd and East­man for spe­cial func­tions. "I had been wear­ing Zadd and East­man even be­fore I be­came an en­ter­tain­er. Maybe since the year 2000. We de­vel­oped a friend­ship af­ter I vis­it­ed their shop on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions. I keep go­ing back sim­ply be­cause I know that they know me, they un­der­stand me, and the clothes they make for me to­tal­ly fit what I want the prod­uct Vaugh­nette Big­ford to look like," she said.

Big­ford feels their clothes are quin­tes­sen­tial­ly Caribbean. "I love a num­ber of lo­cal de­sign­ers and I own pieces by a few of them. I think each of our lo­cal de­sign­ers have a unique way of rep­re­sent­ing them­selves and they all do re­al­ly great work, but per­son­al­ly I stick with Zadd and East­man be­cause I think their clothes re­flect the beau­ty of the Caribbean per­son. The strik­ing colours, the beau­ti­ful silks, the hand-paint­ed pieces are all amaz­ing­ly re­flec­tive of who we are as a peo­ple. East­man said, "The first col­lec­tion was hand-paint­ed linen, tan and brown. Then we went in­to some paint­ed chif­fon with flo­ral pat­terns on hand-paint­ed chif­fon. There were a lot of greens and blues and yel­lows. Then hand-paint­ed silk in cool and breezy bright colours. With­in re­cent times our con­struc­tion was a lit­tle more de­fined."

East­man was re­fer­ring to the recre­ation of the sig­na­ture line in 2009 for the Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as fash­ion show. The new­er work cou­pled flow­ing maxi dress­es with corsets, zip­per de­tails and pom­padours. Khan re­lat­ed be­ing ho­n­oured by a call from the Malaysian prime min­is­ter's wife, who went home with some of their pieces. Their work has been fea­tured most no­tably in the Ital­ian fash­ion mag­a­zine El Collezioni and worn by R&B singer Michelle Williams. They al­so out­fit­ted Miss Uni­verse Trinidad 2011 Gabrielle Wal­cott. Their re­sort col­lec­tion is stark­ly dif­fer­ent from the sig­na­ture that has graced run­ways through­out the Caribbean, Eu­rope and North Amer­i­ca.

"If you look in re­cent trends, you'll see the re­sort clothes. Cruise glam­our has been in de­mand for the last five years and that was the in­spi­ra­tion: some­thing cur­rent but that could al­so be af­ford­able. We were al­so play­ing with voile, silk and cot­ton and did a lot of colour block­ing," said Khan. "This col­lec­tion was a lit­tle dif­fer­ent from our nor­mal thing, which is ei­ther paint­ing or dy­ing. No more merg­ing of colour, but just sharp blocks of colour and noth­ing form-fit­ting." Part of their strength is the abil­i­ty to merge dif­fer­ent in­flu­ences. "Some­times it's a lit­tle Afro­cen­tric. Some­times it's a lil' In­do­cen­tric. Some­times it's in the mid­dle. Some­times it's just plain classy. There are com­mon el­e­ments of style but there has to be a cer­tain taste and mar­ketabil­i­ty," ex­plained East­man.

All their col­lec­tions are wear­able-no fan­ta­sy run­way...on­ly clothes here-and made so that the mid­dle class can af­ford them. "The mon­ey is to be made from the mid­dle class. The poor can't af­ford it and the wealthy re­al­ly don't come. The mid­dle class in T&T buy the bulk of the cloth­ing so that's who we tar­get."