The Caribbean Mu­sic Awards (CMA) on Sep­tem­ber 19 was a mem­o­rable oc­ca­sion for re­gion­al artistes, but it held a spe­cial mean­ing for de­sign­er Kambe Lovelace. The young de­sign­er got the op­por­tu­ni­ty to style singer and song­writer Shereese “Mela Caribe” Ed­mund, and to see two of his KAMBE The Brand pieces in the spot­light—on the red car­pet and at the af­ter par­ty.

He told Busi­ness Guardian that al­though he had worked with Ed­mund a cou­ple of times be­fore, hav­ing his work on dis­play at an event as pres­ti­gious at the CMA was a mind-blow­ing ex­pe­ri­ence for him per­son­al­ly, and a great mar­ket­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty for his brand.

“It’s a big deal and I was ner­vous as hell, but I was al­so ready for it. I start­ed work­ing with her for the Car­ni­val sea­son last year, on just a cou­ple looks for her to per­form in. And then I got asked to dress her for a cou­ple of scenes for the Lost in Trin­ba­go mu­sic video. And then she told me she would like to work with me again for the Caribbean Mu­sic Awards.”

He said this was some­thing he had want­ed to do since he start­ed his brand, and was ea­ger to see her in his de­signs.

KAMBE The Brand was formed in 2016, with Lovelace de­sign­ing, sewing and sell­ing pieces to friends. The fol­low­ing year he was con­tract­ed to de­sign and make a wed­ding dress, as well as the dress­es for the bridal par­ty.

“That was a re­al­ly big op­por­tu­ni­ty and I did every­thing my­self. The lace that we got was a lit­tle bit sparse, so I bought ex­tra lace, cut it and then hand-sewed it to the lace fab­ric that was on the dress to cre­ate a pat­tern. I al­ways try to see how I can el­e­vate a look when I’m cre­at­ing a piece.”

In 2023, he said, he start­ed to prep for his first col­lec­tion, which was launched in 2024; his Ban­dana and Den­im col­lec­tion. Pro­duc­tion, the mar­ket­ing cam­paign and rental space, he es­ti­mates, cost him about $6,000. He said it could have been more ex­pen­sive, but as an emerg­ing brand, he re­ceived con­ces­sions from his pho­tog­ra­ph­er and cloth­ing store 36 Cor­ne­lio.

“That was just a small cap­sule col­lec­tion that went in­to 36 Cor­ne­lio dur­ing the Car­ni­val pe­ri­od, for just about a month. And then every­thing just kind of snow­balled from there. The col­lec­tion did re­al­ly well and 36 Cor­ne­lio of­fered me a space in the store. In the lat­ter part of 2024, I pro­duced an­oth­er col­lec­tion, which was a work­wear-in­spired col­lec­tion, and that went in­to the store for the en­tire year, and at Poshh Col­lec­tion in Grand Bazaar for two months.”

The 33-year-old Ari­ma res­i­dent us­es both lo­cal­ly-bought and im­port­ed fab­ric, based on what he is cre­at­ing and the time he has to fin­ish the job.

“If it’s quick turn­around times, then yes, I buy it lo­cal­ly.”

He hopes to do a third col­lec­tion next year.

“I re­al­ly want peo­ple to see all of what the brand can of­fer, all of the cool­ness of the KAMBE brand and how that trans­lates to dif­fer­ent peo­ple and dif­fer­ent events and dif­fer­ent op­por­tu­ni­ties.”

He re­cent­ly col­lab­o­rat­ed on a short-form mag­a­zine called The Zine, in which his de­signs were in­cor­po­rat­ed. He said dark-skinned women were de­lib­er­ate­ly used, dressed sexy to show­case a dif­fer­ent side of Caribbean fash­ion that is on­ly seen some­times in a spe­cif­ic place, such as mu­sic videos.

“And re­al­ly hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion about the beau­ty of a Caribbean woman and that their beau­ty should be some­thing to be cel­e­brat­ed.

“What I al­so want my brand to stand for is that, we can be cool, we can take risks, we can be mul­ti-di­men­sion­al... It’s a part of our cul­ture, that’s lit­er­al­ly a part of our his­to­ry, and that’s some­thing that when dress­ing women or Caribbean women, we should be proud that they are com­fort­able in their skin to show it off a bit.”

Lovelace’s sewing skills be­gan with a six-month in­tro­duc­to­ry sewing course at Hillary’s School of De­sign in Port-of-Spain, in 2014, which cost him $400 a month.

“I learned the ba­sics in pat­tern draft­ing and gar­ment con­struc­tion, and I learned how to put on a zip, how to draft and sew a skirt. I think I al­so did a shirt or like some sort of blouse and sleeves; that’s the ba­sics.”

From there he taught him­self to do pants, gowns, dress­es, suits, jack­ets and more.

“So all those things I learned to do by my­self, through YouTube, and al­so tri­al and er­ror and some ex­per­i­men­ta­tion.” His plan is to con­tin­ue to ex­pand, work with more peo­ple—cre­ators and per­form­ers—and con­tin­ue to pro­duce col­lec­tions that can pos­si­bly go re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

“Even if I got one store some­where that’s not in Trinidad and To­ba­go to pur­chase my pieces and sell them, I’ll be hap­py.”