Fay­ola K J Fras­er

If you trav­el across the Caribbean Sea, just shy of 1,000 miles west of Port of Spain, the mag­i­cal city of Carta­ge­na sits grace­ful­ly perched on Colom­bia’s Caribbean coast­line. From the com­pelling sen­so­ry na­ture of this stun­ning sea­side town to the warmth of its dwellers, to the vi­bran­cy of its colours, it is im­pos­si­ble to de­ny a shared Caribbean pulse, deeply root­ed in the city’s foun­da­tion.

Casa Caribe, the new­ly re­leased col­lec­tion by Trinida­di­an de­sign­er, Shoma Per­sad of Shoma The La­bel looks to­ward Colom­bia from Trinidad. It is a sub­lime cel­e­bra­tion of our in­nate sim­i­lar­i­ties, a de­pic­tion of our dis­tinct dif­fer­ences and a medi­um to forge greater col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca.

The fourth col­lec­tion from Shoma The La­bel runs par­al­lel to Per­sad’s jour­ney of dis­cov­ery as a de­sign­er, busi­ness own­er and artist. Her care­ful­ly cu­rat­ed col­lec­tions are not de­signed in si­los, and each one fol­lows her imag­ined fe­male pro­tag­o­nist through var­i­ous jour­neys of self-ac­tu­al­i­sa­tion.

From her first col­lec­tion, Trop­i­cal Mas­quer­ade, she be­gan weav­ing the sto­ry of the ex­plo­ration of the mul­ti­fac­eted beau­ty of our lived en­vi­ron­ment in T&T. Her sec­ond col­lec­tion, “Har­vest”, reimag­ined the el­e­ments of our rich and com­plex his­to­ry. “Mag­ic Is­land”, the pre­de­ces­sor to Casa Caribe, is a bold state­ment of ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the unique beau­ty and mys­ti­cism of our cul­ture. Fi­nal­ly, in Casa Caribe, the pro­tag­o­nist is ready to emerge, self-as­sured by her deep roots, and in­spired to branch out, to ex­pe­ri­ence and ho­n­our cross-cul­tur­al con­nec­tions.

Casa Caribe is a cel­e­bra­tion of con­nec­tions and re­dis­cov­ery. “As the vi­bran­cy and warmth of Colom­bia touched my heart, I found echoes of Trinidad’s cul­ture in its streets and smiles.”

Per­sad not­ed that the fu­sion of Span­ish in­flu­ences and Trinidad’s di­verse her­itage be­came a can­vas for her cre­ativ­i­ty, re­flect­ing a Trin­bag­on­ian woman’s in­domitable spir­it, vi­brant au­ra, and flair. This col­lec­tion delves in­to the depth of French Cre­ole her­itage, par­tic­u­lar­ly its pro­found im­pact on Caribbean Car­ni­val main­tain­ing the strong tra­di­tion of hand tai­lor­ing, en­trenched in our past, and must be pre­served and re­vi­talised in the present.

Casa Caribe is not just a col­lec­tion; it’s a jour­ney that cel­e­brates our col­lec­tive his­to­ry through the art of fash­ion. It merges the ex­quis­ite prints de­signed by Colom­bian artists with the en­dur­ing el­e­gance of French Cre­ole fash­ion, cre­at­ing a ta­pes­try of sto­ries told through fab­ric and de­sign.

The col­lec­tion is a fu­sion of the mighty An­des and the spir­it­ed is­land of Trinidad. The prints cap­ture the essence of both lands, blend­ing moun­tain­ous grandeur with trop­i­cal vi­bran­cy, sym­bol­is­ing a jour­ney across con­ti­nents where dis­tinct cul­tures har­mo­nious­ly in­ter­twine. The sun­set om­bré mir­rors the breath­tak­ing Caribbean sun­sets, sym­bol­is­ing hope, ad­ven­ture, and the eter­nal beau­ty of na­ture. It is a trib­ute to na­ture’s di­verse and vi­brant ta­pes­try; a cel­e­bra­tion of the flo­ra from both Trinidad and Colom­bia.

How­ev­er, this col­lec­tion is al­so about the cel­e­bra­tion of over­com­ing. As an SME and one fo­cused on the fash­ion in­dus­try, there have been count­less chal­lenges and ob­sta­cles that have con­sumed so much en­er­gy and fo­cus.

“While I am proud of the brand’s achieve­ments,” Per­sad says, “I of­ten won­der where we could have been if there was a more con­ducive ecosys­tem to sup­port both the in­dus­try and growth.”

She not­ed that one of the most sig­nif­i­cant ob­sta­cles the la­bel has had to over­come was the lack of in­fra­struc­ture and ser­vices tai­lored to sup­port SMEs. For ex­am­ple, the freight as­so­ci­at­ed with the im­por­ta­tion of raw ma­te­ri­als, com­bined with the ac­tu­al cost to ex­port our fin­ished prod­ucts ac­counts for a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the brand’s cost. This has made it hard­er to break in­to this very com­pet­i­tive in­dus­try, and al­though the brand has had amaz­ing suc­cess by hav­ing the prod­ucts avail­able in in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets, it has been at the ex­pense of prof­its, which in turn have im­pact­ed their abil­i­ty to rein­vest and au­to­mate to sup­port the de­mand­ed scale.

‘De­sign­ing with in­ten­tion’

An­oth­er chal­lenge Per­sad has faced has been the lack of in­fra­struc­ture to sup­port a busi­ness that re­lies so heav­i­ly on an e-com­merce plat­form. In a present-day so­ci­ety where in­di­vid­u­als have been ex­posed to the ease of do­ing busi­ness with the likes of Ama­zon, they ex­pect to click and pay.

“There were many hic­cups ex­pe­ri­enced in the in­te­gra­tion with the lo­cal in­sti­tu­tions and the var­i­ous pay­ment por­tals with our web­site, caus­ing frus­tra­tion with our in­ter­na­tion­al clients.”

She ex­plained that they mit­i­gat­ed these chal­lenges ear­li­er on in her jour­ney, how­ev­er, it needs to be ad­dressed.

These chal­lenges are not faced on­ly by those in the fash­ion in­dus­try. Per­sad “sym­pa­this­es with the clutch of bur­geon­ing en­tre­pre­neurs and SMEs who have amaz­ing prod­ucts and ser­vices that can be made avail­able” but must over­come these chal­lenges. Her ad­vice to them is to stay fo­cused and “stay true to your dream, don’t give up even if the sys­tem and in­fra­struc­ture around you don’t lend the sup­port,” in­sist­ing that al­though T&T is small, there is so much in­dige­nous tal­ent to be in­ter­na­tion­al­ly show­cased.

A key tenet of Per­sad’s vi­sion is to be­come a go-to brand for lux­u­ry Caribbean fash­ion, as well as a tes­ta­ment to the vi­sion and vi­a­bil­i­ty of “slow fash­ion.” Slow fash­ion refers to cloth­ing built sus­tain­ably, is long-last­ing and of­ten craft­ed by ar­ti­sans. When some­one or­ders a piece from the la­bel, “there is ef­fort from when you re­ceive your piece to when you wear your piece,” as Per­sad in­vests heav­i­ly in pack­ag­ing, cloth­ing ma­te­ri­als, and her staff, and en­sures that no cor­ners are cut through the process.

Of­ten la­belled a per­fec­tion­ist, she utilis­es the plat­form she has cre­at­ed to cul­ti­vate ex­cel­lence in the Caribbean fash­ion in­dus­try. As a Trin­bag­on­ian in fash­ion, Per­sad feels that “it is a true priv­i­lege that I have the abil­i­ty to bring my vi­sion, tra­di­tion, and unique­ness to the world. My her­itage is some­thing I car­ry in my heart. I’ve al­ways felt proud of my cul­ture and try my best to con­vey that through my de­signs.”

Not on­ly is Per­sad en­thralled by the unas­sum­ing beau­ty of Colom­bian cities, she saw this col­lec­tion as an op­por­tu­ni­ty for her brand to tap in­to the Latin Amer­i­can mar­ket and fash­ion in­dus­try. More so, she saw it as a vi­able op­por­tu­ni­ty for in­te­gra­tion, de­vel­op­ment of wider dis­tri­b­u­tion chan­nels and in­cor­po­ra­tion of rep­re­sen­ta­tion from the Caribbean in the Latin Amer­i­can fash­ion com­mu­ni­ty. Per­sad saw it as not just a strate­gic step for her­self, “but a way to get the con­ver­sa­tion start­ed in­ter­na­tion­al­ly about Trinida­di­an fash­ion, and in fact, about Trinidad it­self.”

“De­sign­ing with in­ten­tion,” is Per­sad’s con­sis­tent re­frain, as with every col­lec­tion she seeks to sit­u­ate her brand in a broad­er con­text of the fash­ion in­dus­try while re­main­ing au­then­tic to the Caribbean. Casa Caribe main­tains the woman-cen­tred fo­cus that is para­mount to her brand, cre­at­ing shapes, styles and pat­terns that are not on­ly so­phis­ti­cat­ed and vi­su­al­ly stun­ning, but al­so make every woman feel beau­ti­ful.

Her Rosa Lin­da Mi­di skirt, one of the stand­out pieces of the new col­lec­tion, is an ab­stract in­ter­pre­ta­tion of T&T’s coat of arms, where she main­tained the struc­ture of the na­tion­al sym­bol and re­placed el­e­ments such as the birds and the shields with drap­ing flow­ers.

It is this cre­ativ­i­ty and imag­i­na­tion that have cat­a­pult­ed Per­sad in­to her own cat­e­go­ry in the lo­cal fash­ion in­dus­try, as every de­tail of her new col­lec­tion is rich­ly im­bued with mean­ing. Casa Caribe has suc­cess­ful­ly struck the del­i­cate bal­ance of fa­mil­iar­i­ty, main­tain­ing the qual­i­ty and lux­u­ry that peo­ple have come to ex­pect from Shoma Per­sad, while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly breath­ing new life in­to the fash­ion scene with its so­phis­ti­ca­tion, el­e­gance and in­tri­ca­cy.

Find the Casa Caribe Col­lec­tion at www.shomath­e­la­bel.com and find Shoma Per­sad on In­sta­gram @shomath­e­la­bel