The Cloth's expansive, rugged Belmont workspace in a former factory site contrasts in scale and mood with Amen's snug, cheerful home-based fabric-printing business cradled in the St Ann's hills. T&T fashion sector businesses not only operate in diverse spaces, but they also face different constraints unique to their own practices, and have different ideas of how to run things.
Despite differences, however, the three designers we spoke with identified some common problems: the need for more retail avenues for local products; the need for local, accessible manufacturing, to be able to produce larger orders; and an eternal mystification at State policy for the fashion sector–and how to democratically access the kinds of State help that might be available.
Investing in community
Robert Young, the tall, engaging designer behind The Cloth fashion enterprise, which celebrates its 29th anniversary this year, was busy behind his sewing machine when we talked just before Carnival. He had orders for steelband outfits to make and deliver; he was generously sharing studio space and ideas with a mokojumbie masquerade artist; and he was also bringing out his own mas band. In between all this, he'd take calls on his cell from clients and various small suppliers.
"Sometimes it feels like I'm not running a business, but a cultural project," he joked, laughing. He creates artistic Caribbean clothing for sale, and also nurtures linkages with fellow artists and small businesses in his efforts to build a community spirit as well as a sustainable livelihood based on indigenous values. His "business model," he said, is Maroon–inspired by economist Lloyd Best's notion of the "maroon economy," a term Best used to describe the many small independent producers and entrepreneurs engaged in business who use high local content and minimal foreign input, and whose businesses have the potential to earn foreign exchange if properly supported.
Young is a strong advocate for a cooperative way of producing, which involves T&T people not just working as factory labour, but as business co-owners, too. Workers having a stake in production will change their attitudes to work, he believes–as well as creating local employment, and building valuable skills that truly empower communities.
The realities of industry
Robert Young's community-based view of his work model is a bit different from, say, Dianne Hunt, who comes from a family heritage of clothes manufacturing. The daughter of a seamstress and a mechanic, her mother worked in a garment factory, as did her aunt, who was a factory supervisor. Hunt studied fashion production and design at LaSalle College in Montreal, and came into the fashion industry as a fashion designer and business owner of Radical Designs in 1989, in partnership with her brother. The success of the fresh, audacious, classy Radical line in the 90s gave her a keen sense of the business needs of fashion: not only stylish, quality-made designs, but efficient production flows, disciplined management and a ready market are just a few of the key elements needed to succeed, she said. Radical was among the only fashion businesses to franchise in the region at that time, with totally local production and up to 11 stores, including franchises in St Maarten, Barbados, Antigua, and Grenada. They even sold product in Miami.
"The only thing that we contracted abroad, because we didn't have the technology, were our jeans and bags; some of that was done in China," she said. "We had stitchers, cutters, trimmers, pressers, the whole works...we had maybe 40 employees, including retail and factory workers." Her approach focused on a tangible end result: good retail sales and good business practices, not necessarily tied to a cooperative approach to manufacturing. Indeed, she thinks the current work ethic of labour is so poor that we might well have to outsource production these days. She however believes there's space for multiple business approaches to work, side by side.
Using the right technology
Greer Jones-Woodham's approach is that of a small, unique cottage industry with aspirations to expand with manufacturing help. She delights in creating Caribbean designs suggested by our environment and our own culture, to create a sense of memory and cultural identity in her textiles: "so that we don't forget who we are."
Like Young, she thinks workers need a stake in owning or co-owning manufacturing enterprises for any model of local manufacturing to succeed today in T&T: "Workers have to buy into it. That is the only thing that will change the attitude of workers in this country. You need to give them back the power. And that's the only way to do it. How else are we going to do it?"
She made an impassioned case for the State's help in accessing factory spaces to enable a resurgence of local mass production, without which, she feels, no local fashion industry can exist.
Jones-Woodham's approach is, above all, very much informed by the need to research and use current technologies that, in some cases, have totally transformed the fashion industry.
Traditional labour-intensive ways of printing textile designs, for instance, can now be done using design programmes and different kinds of equipment, enabling more efficient production, especially for small one-stop-shop businesses that have to do it all themselves: design, produce, and sell. Her approach implies that we need to do our homework, research which technologies will work best for our situation, and produce more intelligently.
A State of confusion?
Despite their differences, all designers cited a lack of clarity about state policies for assistance, with a common perception that there has been, so far, no fair, transparent, objective system for awards of state-sponsored work or support in fashion goods, services, training or trade opportunities, often spanning several administrations.
"So far there is no clear policy of how they operate," said Robert Young. "When CreativeTT did the event called Masquerade, it did not engage with the Fashion Association as a body; it dealt with individual designers."
Such a selective approach, in the absence of an established system for the sector, encourages needless divisiveness, which a fledgling fashion sector in a small, multi-ethnic society can ill afford, he said.
"We need clear policy. So if there is a change of administration or even change within the same administration, with different players, there is some system of how we are communicating, which will not be reinvented," said Young.
Jones-Woodham agreed with the need for a clear state policy on fashion, saying: "The structure so far has been exclusive. The Government uses their preferred people all the time....And it has been so since back in the 80s... It's still exclusive, because people don't know how any individual gets chosen (for state subsidised work). That has to stop. Look at the good example of the i2i competition for innovators, for example: the judges look at numbers, not names, when deciding. It's fair. But in this country, favouritism still operates."
She called for a more thoughtful, co-ordinated, sustained policy on the fashion sector, rather than the typical habit of one-off investments in isolated trade trips or events:
"They (the State) dispense these potholes of money, and it seems when the money done, they are done thinking."
Who we spoke with
From high-end Caribbean haute couture, to graphic t-shirts and street clothing, to work uniforms, beachwear and jewelry, T&T's fashion sector makes many niche products, ranging from functional to whimsical to very exclusive. We talked to three designers with collective experience in making unique, creative apparel and designed fabrics: Greer Jones-Woodham, Robert Young and Dianne Hunt.
Robert Young is a clothing artist, cultural activist and founder of The Cloth, an indigenous clothing business founded in 1986. Young's colourful appliqued designs and quality-made clothing lines are worn by T&T singers, musicians, performers and discerning citizens who enjoy local designs throughout the Caribbean diaspora. Son of a former trades unionist, Robert Young often uses his clothing designs as canvases to portray issues and tell stories. He designed sections for Peter Minshall mas bands in past decades. Ideas influencing his often theatrical, multimedia fashion shows have included biomimicry, the tropical environment, revolution, and the need for introspection.
Greer Jones-Woodham is a fabric designer and entrepreneur–she and her daughter Sarah run the business AMEN–A Memory Emerging New. Jones-Woodham started with her own shop at the Normandie hotel in the 1980s, designing fabric and clothes. She later taught at UWI and lectured at UTT. At her business AMEN, launched in November 2013 after she won funding for her business idea from the 2012 Ideas to Innovation competition, she and her daughter use digital design technology to print cloth with Caribbean motifs, and sell locally designed fabric as well as a range of textile products. Jones-Woodham also teaches in UTT's entrepreneurial business incubator programme.
Dianne Hunt is a businesswoman, fashion designer and former apparel manufacturer who used to co-own, design, and help manage the local fashion business Radical, which at one point ran a successful chain of shops throughout the Caribbean. Hunt conceptualised and organised the highly successful Fashion Week TT (FWTT) event, a dynamic fashion showcase held in 2008, 2009 and 2010 to promote local designers. After many years in the fashion business, she left it to start new ventures: DH Gift home d�cor shops, and Dianne's Tea Shop.