Bo­bie-lee Dixon

At 45 years of age, be­com­ing a de­sign­er was not some­thing Chris­tine Lewis had to put a lot of thought in­to. From a very ten­der age, af­ter ob­serv­ing her moth­er on the sewing ma­chine, she be­gan try­ing her hand at the craft, sewing her first skirt while at­tend­ing pri­ma­ry school. "I was in stan­dard five when I sewed my first skirt. I thought I had watched my moth­er long enough and I had a good idea of what to do, so I made it and it re­al­ly came out good. Good enough for me to wear it in pub­lic," laughed Lewis.

Want­i­ng to hone her skills, Lewis ex­celled at dress­mak­ing in her Home Eco­nom­ics class at Bel­mont Sec­ondary School (for­mer­ly Bel­mont Ju­nior Sec­ondary). Next it was on to Basilon Street Youth Cen­tre, where she learned how to sew blous­es. "I at­tend­ed the Youth Cen­tre while at­tend­ing South East Port-of-Spain Sec­ondary, be­cause they (South East) on­ly had the sub­ject in the­o­ry. And when I com­plet­ed school I en­rolled at John Don­ald­son Tech­ni­cal In­sti­tute, where I did a cer­tifi­cate course in fash­ion draft­ing.

Us­ing the cer­tifi­cate I be­came a mem­ber of the Ex­po Cen­tre in Tu­na­puna, where I learned gar­ment con­struc­tion and pat­tern draft­ing, as well as life skills as it re­lates to a ca­reer in de­sign­ing. "To­day I am the proud own­er of Yohannes De­signs, which means: gift from God. I op­er­ate my busi­ness home in Pe­tit Bourg, San Juan, at the mo­ment," Lewis, now 55, ex­plained.

Show­ing off her style

The moth­er of five (one de­ceased), spe­cialis­es in tie dye and fab­ric paint­ing, and has had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to show off the work of her hands at nu­mer­ous events. To date, how­ev­er, she records Set This Sea­son, a re­cent Fa­ther's Day fash­ion ex­hi­bi­tion held at the Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel in St Ann's, as her most en­joy­able and suc­cess­ful. "That show was re­al good. But there will be a big show com­ing up in Oc­to­ber, a de­sign­er com­pe­ti­tion ac­tu­al­ly. The day, time and venue are still ten­ta­tive so I won't men­tion it for now. What I can say, though, is that it would be a fash­ion show with a dif­fer­ence," she dis­closed.

Goal

With ten years ex­pe­ri­ence, Lewis' ul­ti­mate goal is to get her own bou­tique and for her name to stand among some of T&T's top de­sign­ers like Heather Jones, whom she ad­mires and re­gards as her role mod­el. "I think every­one reach­es a stage where they blos­som and I be­lieve my sea­son is here. I have worked hard and I am still work­ing hard do­ing this for ten years by my­self, and I have man­aged by the grace of God. "But it's time for me to move up that lad­der in my ca­reer, and I am aim­ing for Yohannes De­signs to be recog­nised through­out the Caribbean, and, if blessed...in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, too.