Lisa Allen-Agos­ti­ni

The mag­a­zine Trinidad Look­book opened its Style Spir­it Fash­ion Week­end on De­cem­ber 7 with sem­i­nars on build­ing brands and mar­ket­ing, and con­tin­ued yes­ter­day with an ac­ces­sories trunk show and run­way fea­tur­ing Caribbean de­sign­ers. It ends to­day with net­work­ing brunch (by in­vi­ta­tion on­ly) and an­oth­er run­way show. In the two-year ab­sence of T&T Fash­ion Week, Style Spir­it is the biggest thing to hit lo­cal fash­ion in years.

LISA?ALLEN-AGOS­TI­NI in­ter­viewed Look­book pub­lish­er and ed­i­tor Mel Gabriel on the event.

Lisa Allen-Agos­ti­ni: Who are the de­sign­ers lined up for to­day's run­way? What kinds of looks will be com­ing down?

Mel Gabriel: Our de­sign­er line up in­cludes: Van der Vlugt, Fash­ion Dandy, Li­ila, A-Lan Swimwear, Delia Al­leyne, 36 EDR, Ri­hon, Loud by Afiya, Kimya Glas­gow, and Hak Gwai.

Each de­sign­er is re­al­ly do­ing some­thing dif­fer­ent; from struc­tured, em­bell­ished looks to tiny, laser-cut swimwear. You can ex­pect tons of colour, tons of de­tail and whim­sy.

LAA: In your opin­ion, is there such a thing as a "Caribbean aes­thet­ic," and if there is, can pa­trons ex­pect to see it show­ing up at Style Spir­it?

MG: I think that fash­ion in Trinidad & To­ba­go is evolv­ing from just the stereo­typ­i­cal "Caribbean aes­thet­ic" to a more uni­ver­sal aes­thet­ic of em­brac­ing per­son­al style, pulling in­spi­ra­tions from Eu­rope, North Amer­i­ca and Asia. We are more ex­posed to fash­ion and per­son­al style through the In­ter­net (blogs, fash­ion web­sites, live stream of fash­ion shows), and be­cause of this we feel a lit­tle more em­pow­ered to step out of the box of typ­i­cal "Caribbean style." With that said, you will def­i­nite­ly get a sense of that evo­lu­tion at Style Spir­it; our de­sign­ers' aes­thet­ic is not just Caribbean but a re­flec­tion of our ex­po­sure to in­ter­na­tion­al fash­ion and style.

LAA: Style Spir­it Fash­ion Week­end al­so in­clud­ed sem­i­nars, an ac­ces­sories sale and a net­work­ing brunch. Why not just the run­way shows?

MG: We de­cid­ed to ap­proach Style Spir­it Fash­ion Week­end in a more holis­tic way-cel­e­brat­ing var­i­ous as­pects of fash­ion and style. We want­ed to cre­ate an op­por­tu­ni­ty for ex­po­sure for not on­ly our emerg­ing de­sign­ers, but al­so for in­di­vid­u­als in­ter­est­ed in pur­su­ing oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ties and ca­reers in fash­ion. At our sem­i­nars our spe­cial guests [were sched­uled to] in­clude beau­ty blog­ger Patrice Grell Yur­sik of afro­bel­la.com; Misa Hyl­ton, an in­ter­na­tion­al celebri­ty styl­ist and founder of Misa Hyl­ton Fash­ion Acad­e­my; renowned mu­sic video di­rec­tor, fash­ion de­sign­er, DJ and style icon Vashtie Ko­la; and Joi White, who is the vi­su­al mer­chan­dis­ing man­ag­er with in­ter­na­tion­al fash­ion house Chloe North Amer­i­ca and se­nior vi­su­al mer­chan­dis­ing man­ag­er/styl­ist at Joe Fresh. Our aim is to re­al­ly present to in­ter­est­ed par­ties what con­tributes to the spir­it of fash­ion.

LAA: You said in a Guardian in­ter­view in No­vem­ber, "We have a prob­lem with man­u­fac­tur­ing. We need to en­gage man­u­fac­tur­ers and cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for them to make fash­ion in­stead of just uni­forms." But is that eco­nom­i­cal­ly fea­si­ble in the cur­rent T&T econ­o­my? What are some of the things that need to be in place for the fash­ion man­u­fac­tur­ing in­dus­try to get back on its feet?

MG: I be­lieve that it is eco­nom­i­cal­ly fea­si­ble. Many in­di­vid­u­als take pic­tures of the pieces of cloth­ing they see avail­able on­line and car­ry them to their tai­lors and seam­stress­es to sew a gar­ment that would achieve a sim­i­lar look. If we have this yearn­ing to por­tray our style through the cloth­ing we wear, and we have lo­cal young and tal­ent­ed de­sign­ers that are able to pro­vide us with such gar­ments, why wouldn't it be eco­nom­i­cal­ly fea­si­ble? We have the de­mand for it.

Fash­ion first­ly needs tru­ly to be recog­nised as an in­dus­try that can con­tribute to the lo­cal econ­o­my. I feel as though once this is tru­ly recog­nised, not just ver­bal­ly but through fund­ing and prop­er in­fra­struc­ture, the fash­ion man­u­fac­tur­ing in­dus­try would get a great boost.

LAA: You mightn't want to an­swer this, but I'll ask it any­way: Whose run­way pre­sen­ta­tion are you most look­ing for­ward to to­day, and why?

MG: You're def­i­nite­ly right: I am ex­treme­ly ex­cit­ed to see every one of the de­sign­ers' col­lec­tions. I couldn't choose just one even if I tried! I've got­ten sneak peeks and they are all amaz­ing in their own way. We can't wait.

The Show

Trinidad Look­book Mag­a­zine presents Style Spir­it Fash­ion Week­end.

• 6 pm: Run­way show. The Ware­house, Champs Fleurs.

• 8 pm: Af­ter-par­ty.

• Tick­ets: 469-9132, 329-6363, 779-6827, 746-3091, 767-6033 or 330-9975. In­fo: trinidad­look­book.com/style-spir­it-2012/thewknd/