An im­pos­ing or­ange and blue build­ing with fret­work and dec­o­ra­tive strips along the ridges of the roof stands at 7 Dengue Street, St James. While pick­ing guavas, a care­tak­er ex­plained the oc­to­ge­nar­i­an ed­i­fice once served the com­mu­ni­ty as a co-op­er­a­tive. He said: "That build­ing is old­er than me. It's over 80 years old." Even the fence could qual­i­fy for the la­bel "an­tique" since the coarse con­crete blocks are paint­ed red. As C2k12 in­ten­si­fies, the build­ing's top floor is strewn and dec­o­rat­ed with head­pieces, glit­ter, se­quins, ap­pliques and fab­ric.

Gen­e­sis band­lead­ers/vet­er­an mas­quer­aders Ian Mc Ken­zie and his wife Ni­na are work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly to con­vert the jig­saw in­to a splen­did por­tray­al-Kalei­do­scope of Red. Tro­phies from past vic­to­ries and sexy cos­tumes snug on man­nequins' bod­ies en­tice prospec­tive mas­quer­aders. Hav­ing ig­nit­ed her cre­ative spark, Ni­na said: "For C2k12, it is Kalei­do­scope of Red. It is some­thing not done be­cause of the con­trast of colours. It's a bit chal­leng­ing. But it is some­thing I think I can pull off." The unique fea­ture about the por­tray­al is "all 1,500 head­pieces would be red. A kalei­do­scope of colour­ful cos­tumes would merge with the ho­moge­nous red." Mc Ken­zie added: "While the base colour is red. The body would have greens, pur­ples, black, yel­lows and the mix­ing of the reds.

Spec­ta­tors would wit­ness a splen­did sea of red ad­vanc­ing." Eyes twin­kling, Mc Ken­zie said: "We are hop­ing to catch them with the red head­pieces." It was not sur­pris­ing she's pin­ning her hopes on red since it con­notes the ex­cite­ment and en­er­gy syn­ony­mous with Car­ni­va­lesque may­hem. Ad­mir­ing a re­splen­dent "red-feath­ered" beau­ty, she said: "It's done with trim­mings and ap­pliques." Kalei­do­scope of Red car­ries eight sec­tions, char­ac­ter por­tray­als and the sec­tion Saucy Black. It's led by so­ca su­per­star Denise Bel­fon, renowned for her danc­ing skills, vo­cal abil­i­ty and mas­sive der­riere. Bel­fon said: "The cos­tume is black, pewter (a cross be­tween sil­ver, bronze and gold). Saucy Black caters for small size to plus-size mas­quer­aders. For a long time, fe­male fans have been call­ing for a per­son­alised cre­ation."

$2,500 tag, 'Rock­et­man' beer

Be­tween quaffs of wa­ter, Ian Mc Ken­zie, said: "The mot­to is 'Less has­sle: More fun.' "We are charg­ing $2,500 across the board. It's all-in­clu­sive. We want to give them 'val­ue for mon­ey'. When we looked at the prices, we de­cid­ed we want­ed to give the cus­tomers a good price." Beer lovers are ex­pect­ed to ben­e­fit from the no­madic pres­ence of "rock­et­men." Ian added: "They will be serv­ing draft beer from back packs. It is strapped on­to their backs. They will pull it from be­hind the can­is­ters and pump it in­to cups."

Wire bra

Dur­ing a Leg­ends por­tray­al, Ni­na ad­mit­ted to get­ting a lot of flak for ex­per­i­ment­ing with the "wire bra and pasties." To­day, she said she has no­ticed a grow­ing trend among mas­quer­aders. "Five sec­tions form the front-line for the wire bra. If the per­son's pref­er­ence is the wire bra, we cater to it." While toy­ing with sketch­es, Ni­na said: "I love do­ing wire bras. They are as­sem­bled right here. I make use of cold glue and hot glue. I love do­ing some­thing ex­ot­ic, cre­ative and un­usu­al."

The pro­duc­tion of the wire bra em­ploys the tra­di­tion­al skill of wire ben­ders. "The wirebend­ing is based on her style and de­mand. It could be kept and worn to par­ties," said Ian. He ex­plained they bought lo­cal ma­te­ri­als. "Gyp­sy (Win­ston Pe­ters) does not have a prob­lem with peo­ple bring­ing in the raw ma­te­r­i­al. He has a prob­lem with peo­ple bring­ing in the whole cos­tume from Chi­na. We sup­port Buy Lo­cal."

The Launch

• The launch of Gen­e­sis C2k12 Pre­sen­ta­tion Kalei­do­scope of Red takes place at Chan­cel­lor Ho­tel, 7 St Ann's Road, St Ann's from 2 pm to 8 pm on Oc­to­ber 9.

For fur­ther in­fo, con­tact Ian McKen­zie at 681-5352 or Ni­na at 480-9108. Vis­it the Web site at Gen­e­sisT­nT.com