Zahra Gor­don

Silk nev­er fades, says tex­tile de­sign­er Lisa Ser­jeant-Gon­za­les. She knows what she's talk­ing about; she's been hand-dye­ing and paint­ing silk for more than 20 years.

Re­cent­ly, Sar­jeant-Gon­za­les tran­si­tioned from sell­ing lengths of fab­ric to de­sign­ing clothes with the fab­rics she de­signs.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view at her bou­tique, Lisa's Fab­rics, 19 Pat­na Street, St James, Sar­jeant-Gon­za­les said many of her cus­tomers weren't al­ways sure what styles best suit­ed the fab­rics they bought, and this be­came her in­spi­ra­tion to de­sign pieces.

The line is a sim­ple, Caribbean-coloured re­sort-wear col­lec­tion prob­a­bly best suit­ed to the vi­brant colour blends Sar­jeant-Gon­za­les ap­plies to cloth. Of course, the en­tire col­lec­tion is made from silk.

"I've worked with every type of fab­ric and I de­cid­ed to spe­cialise in silk be­cause it's the on­ly fab­ric that keeps its colour. It's beau­ti­ful and it feels nice on your skin. I've had peo­ple do­ing ther­a­py come to me be­cause they've been ad­vised to buy silk," she said.

The line's price range is $250-$2,000 be­cause Sar­jeant Gon­za­les said she want­ed the cloth­ing to be af­ford­able. The line al­so in­cludes scarves, which are sold at her bou­tique and at The Gallery in Long Cir­cu­lar mall. Her silk fab­rics are al­so used ex­clu­sive­ly by the de­sign­er Meil­ing. Sar­jeant-Gon­za­les has been work­ing with Meil­ing for more than a decade.

"I like work­ing with her be­cause she re­spects my work and she doesn't tell me what to do. She might say I want these colours and that's it. Or she choos­es from fab­rics I al­ready have."

"I re­al­ly want­ed the cost to be rea­son­able. I want­ed peo­ple to wear these clothes, so I tried to keep the prices at a mark where I could ben­e­fit and al­so have the clothes be at­tain­able."

Sar­jeant-Gon­za­les al­so want­ed the av­er­age woman to feel com­fort­able in every piece she cre­at­ed.

"None of the pieces are form-fit­ting. They're all flow­ing so any­body, any size can wear them. It's all about feel­ing pret­ty and sexy and the clothes don't have to be tight for it to be sexy," she said.

Sar­jeant-Gon­za­les, who is al­so a ra­dio pre­sen­ter on i95FM, feels lucky to be able to do some­thing she loves full time. She said there are days she spends paint­ing and is hap­py to have sup­port from her fam­i­ly to be able to do so. Sar­jeant-Gon­za­les can al­so cred­it fam­i­ly for her cre­ativ­i­ty: her fa­ther Reynold was an ar­chi­tect and artist, and she has an un­cle who is a painter. Both men in­flu­enced her in­ter­est in art, she said.

Sar­jeant-Gon­za­les learned to paint by sit­ting on her fa­ther's lap while he worked on can­vas­es as a child.

Lat­er, she would ex­per­i­ment on her own and was al­so in­flu­enced by her study­ing graph­ic de­sign for­mal­ly at what used to be John Don­ald­son Tech­ni­cal In­sti­tute.

She's al­so in­flu­enced by oth­er lo­cal artists and ar­ti­sans who have "amaz­ing tal­ent."

Sar­jeant-Gon­za­les said there is grow­ing sup­port for lo­cal crafts­men and she's glad to be part of that move­ment.

"Buy­ing lo­cal sup­ports lo­cal and when you sup­port lo­cal you con­tribute to your coun­try. It helps build your coun­try. Oth­er than that, it's not mass-pro­duced. Each piece is an orig­i­nal and peo­ple should be proud of what we pro­duce here. We have some amaz­ing tal­ent in this coun­try."

In the near fu­ture, Sar­jeant-Gon­za­les hopes to ex­pand to do­ing menswear as well as home fur­nish­ings, but she doesn't plan on hir­ing any staff or mass-pro­duc­ing items.

Lisa's Fab­rics is "a one-woman show, be­cause I don't want any­one else to do my work. I've been placed here to do this. This is my san­i­ty. I'm lucky to earn a liv­ing do­ing this and it nev­er feels like a bur­den," she said.

"I'll let this go wher­ev­er it needs to go. The uni­verse has a path for this and I just have to work with it. I have to work and paint and keep push­ing and be­liev­ing in my­self. I have tried oth­er things, but this is what I love."

To find out more about Sar­jeant-Gon­za­les' work vis­it her Face­book page: Lisa's Fab­rics.

Sar­jeant-Gon­za­les is al­so a ven­dor at the ar­ti­san mar­ket, Up­Mar­ket, which will be open this Sat­ur­day at the Wood­brook Youth Fa­cil­i­ty, O'Con­nor St, Wood­brook.