Carnival, a time of colour, gems, feathers, beautiful fabric and more has also become a time to make a fashion statement. Many women come out to make a statement and bring their creativity in how they dress before the big parade on carnival Tuesday.
Nowadays, aside from the mas camps being filled with women collecting costume and making adjustments if need be, many homes turn into a mini mas camp themselves as women set up to design their own Monday wear. While this is true, with each passing year more and more women are opting out of spending time to make their own Monday wear and instead have be seeking after the many designers now providing Monday wear as a collection for the road.
Chances are, most ladies may already have their look for carnival Monday all planned out but have you ever wondered what the designers think about this Monday wear culture?
Particularly, now that there are more male designers creating Monday wear, has it ever crossed your mind what their experience is like dealing with women for carnival? As carnival quickly approaches, we want to share what we found out from a male designer’s perspective.
Dominic Hutch is a designer who was born and raised in Arima in East Trinidad. Despite seemingly insurmountable challenges, his hunger to build a brand, his natural ability to appeal, and the overall demand for resort wear and swimwear in the Caribbean, allowed this business-saavy young man to become one of the rising stars in Caribbean fashion design.
The XX Team met up with male designer Dominic Hutch to find out about his female Monday wear collection for 2019 and his experience designing for women, this is what he had to share with us.
XX: Describe your brand to us?
Dominic Hutch: My brand is known for having a lot of energy and pattern compilations. I create an energy with patterns that people may think won’t work together and I pull them together to make them wok and build a vibe from it
XX: Tell us about your Monday Wear 2019.
DH: My Monday wear for 2019 is titled Soca. I had the collection already completed but I didn’t have a name and when I realised how sweet the soca for this year is, it hit me that that had to be the name. I particularly wanted this name because I want to merge the music with the fashion for my Monday wear. It will be available for both males and females.
Last year wasn’t the best year for me on a personal level but this year I’m coming back with a bang so men and women can look out for it!
Also, my brand is known for a lot of individual pieces as well because I don’t like too much duplication in the look. This means that I work with the client with their ideas as well so the finished product is a mixture of what they’re looking for and what I envision.
XX: Why did you choose to design for women?
DH: It wasn’t a choice really. A couple years ago I got into tailoring and one thing led to another. Sometimes in life you’re on the way to one journey and another journey comes your way and honestly it was in that same way I got into designing Monday wear, bikinis, swimwear etc.
XX: How would you describe Trini women for Carnival?
DH: I’m sure everyone would agree with me when I say sexy. Women love to look sexy, not necessarily skimpy but they love that teasing effect. So when Trini women wear their Monday wear women seem to want to show not too much but just enough to make them look sexy and classy. Most women love a lot of energy which I would say comes out in the bling and colour in their outfits.
The bling and colour really bring out vibrancy and draw attention to them so that they can look like queens.
XX: What’s the craziest request you’ve gotten from a woman?
DH: I’ve had a few women a couple years ago that requested some looks that I would call lingerie because they were really exposing designs and that was definitely one of the weirdest requests for me.
XX: How difficult is it to design for women?
DH: Women are very picky around carnival time because they have a specific look in mind and you as the designer have to execute it.
Especially when you’re dealing with a lot of personalities in this industry it can be difficult and women can sometimes make it more challenging because each woman is different. Their preferences arent the same and as such different things would matter to them with their look. Some women can be very picky with every detail while others would be more casual but that’s jut how it is. You have to love the industry to be able to deal with it.
XX: If you could design a Monday wear or Carnival costume for any woman in the world who would it be and why?
DH: Shensea or Rihanna! They are both like goddesses and they have style, sex appeal and swag which I think is hot. I would love to do a design for either or both of them.