When Amer­i­can ac­tress and for­mer Miss USA Crys­tle Stew­art stepped in front of the cam­era on Tor­to­la, the set­ting was un­mis­tak­ably Caribbean—blue wa­ters, a lux­u­ry re­sort and a de­sign­er whose work draws heav­i­ly from the re­gion.

For the pho­to­shoot at Long Bay Beach Re­sort in the West End of Tor­to­la, Stew­art wore a gold and blue ripped maxi skirt from Guyanese-born de­sign­er An­drea Wil­son’s Erup­tion Col­lec­tion, paired with a match­ing hood­ed crop top with a deep V-cut front and a gold biki­ni.

The im­ages, pho­tographed by New York City pho­tog­ra­ph­er Michael William Paul and pro­duced by MWP Stu­dios, brought to­geth­er fash­ion, re­sort cul­ture and the Caribbean land­scape.

For au­di­ences in Trinidad and To­ba­go, where Car­ni­val, fash­ion and the cre­ative in­dus­tries have long been close­ly in­ter­twined, the grow­ing vis­i­bil­i­ty of Caribbean de­sign­ers on in­ter­na­tion­al plat­forms re­flects a wider re­gion­al push to place Caribbean cre­ativ­i­ty be­yond the tra­di­tion­al tourism im­age of sun, sea and sand.

“She looks stun­ning,” said Wil­son from her Tor­to­la stu­dio and bou­tique. “The look cap­tures the essence of Caribbean glam­our, pair­ing re­sort wear with the crys­tal-blue wa­ters of the British Vir­gin Is­lands in the back­drop—that is Caribbean lux­u­ry.”

The Erup­tion Col­lec­tion draws in­spi­ra­tion from the vol­canic erup­tions that helped shape the Caribbean is­lands, trans­lat­ing the re­gion’s nat­ur­al forces in­to re­sort wear de­signed for its sun, sea and land­scape.

For Wil­son, the pho­to­shoot rep­re­sents more than an­oth­er fash­ion mo­ment. It brings to­geth­er the el­e­ments around which she has spent the past decade build­ing The Is­lander Swim Col­lec­tion - Caribbean de­sign, re­sort wear, des­ti­na­tion im­agery and an in­creas­ing­ly in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ence.

A Caribbean fash­ion jour­ney

Wil­son has lived in the British Vir­gin Is­lands for 25 years, where she has de­vel­oped a la­bel fo­cused on swimwear and re­sort pieces in­spired by the Caribbean en­vi­ron­ment and her love of the Ama­zon in her na­tive Guyana.

Her de­signs have ap­peared at fash­ion shows in the Caribbean and Los An­ge­les. Ear­li­er this year, she made her New York de­but with I Land­ed In The Big Ap­ple dur­ing New York Fash­ion Week.

In Ju­ly, she re­turned to Guyana for her first run­way show at Ori­gins, the coun­try’s pre­mier fash­ion event, re­con­nect­ing her work with the place where her Caribbean sto­ry be­gan.

Her jour­ney re­flects the in­creas­ing­ly re­gion­al na­ture of Caribbean fash­ion, where de­sign­ers from coun­tries such as Trinidad and To­ba­go, Guyana and the wider Caribbean are us­ing lo­cal cul­ture, land­scapes and iden­ti­ty as the foun­da­tion for work aimed at au­di­ences be­yond the re­gion.

That jour­ney has al­so brought Wil­son in­to con­tact with in­ter­na­tion­al per­son­al­i­ties, in­clud­ing Stew­art, who vis­it­ed the British Vir­gin Is­lands in Ju­ly as the celebri­ty host of the ter­ri­to­ry’s 16th an­nu­al Sum­mer Siz­zle BVI.

Stew­art, who was crowned Miss USA in 2008 and stars in the Net­flix se­ries pro­duced by Tyler Per­ry, shared mo­ments from her vis­it with her so­cial me­dia fol­low­ing, which Sum­mer Siz­zle BVI said num­bers near­ly 5.6 mil­lion peo­ple.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion said the trip gen­er­at­ed more than 2.6 mil­lion unique in­ter­ac­tions.

Her itin­er­ary in­clud­ed a pri­vate sail­ing ex­cur­sion to Vir­gin Gor­da, a vis­it to the Baths and lunch at Top of the Baths, along­side her in­volve­ment with Sum­mer Siz­zle.

“The British Vir­gin Is­lands were ab­solute­ly mag­i­cal. From the fash­ion and pho­tog­ra­phy to sail­ing through the is­lands, every mo­ment was a cel­e­bra­tion of beau­ty, cre­ativ­i­ty and pos­i­tive en­er­gy. I’m so grate­ful to Sum­mer Siz­zle BVI for such an un­for­get­table ex­pe­ri­ence,” Stew­art said in a state­ment re­leased by Sum­mer Siz­zle.

Fash­ion as a re­gion­al show­case

For Wil­son, the as­so­ci­a­tion with Sum­mer Siz­zle has pro­vid­ed an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty to place Caribbean de­sign along­side in­ter­na­tion­al fash­ion tal­ent.

The event has be­come a plat­form for Wil­son and oth­er Caribbean de­sign­ers to show­case their work to au­di­ences be­yond the re­gion.

Wil­son said Stew­art’s de­ci­sion to wear The Is­lander Swim Col­lec­tion for the pho­to­shoot was an­oth­er mile­stone in a fash­ion jour­ney that be­gan with a strong con­nec­tion to the Caribbean and con­tin­ues to ex­pand in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

She al­so thanked Stew­art for choos­ing the col­lec­tion and Sum­mer Siz­zle founder and CEO Ter­ry Dono­van for help­ing make the pho­to­shoot pos­si­ble.

“Crys­tle was the per­fect celebri­ty host for Sum­mer Siz­zle BVI,” Dono­van said. “Her star pow­er, her con­nec­tion to Beau­ty in Black, and her gen­uine ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the British Vir­gin Is­lands helped bring an in­cred­i­ble in­ter­na­tion­al spot­light to the des­ti­na­tion.”

For Wil­son, how­ev­er, the sig­nif­i­cance of the mo­ment lies as much in the set­ting as the celebri­ty wear­ing her clothes.

Her de­signs con­tin­ue to draw on the land­scapes, cul­ture and nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ment of the Caribbean, while her re­cent ap­pear­ances in New York and Guyana point to a de­sign­er in­creas­ing­ly tak­ing that re­gion­al iden­ti­ty to in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ences.

The Tor­to­la pho­to­shoot of­fered an­oth­er ex­pres­sion of that jour­ney—Caribbean fash­ion framed by the Caribbean it­self.