Khadi­ja Glas­gow is a me­dia pro­fes­sion­al who is well known in the cre­ative in­dus­try. She wears many hats as an ac­tress, dancer, ed­u­ca­tor, ra­dio and tele­vi­sion pro­duc­er and pre­sen­ter and even artiste man­ag­er and cre­ative con­sul­tant. She says “I think once you func­tion in the cre­ative in­dus­tries, you find your­self be­ing well round­ed, func­tion­ing in all the var­i­ous facets.” In ad­di­tion to the afore­men­tioned, Khadi­ja sim­ply loves to dress up. A “con­ser­v­a­tive dress­er” is how she de­scribes her­self. “I pre­fer to have my body cov­ered. I have worked as a mar­ket­ing and cre­ative con­sul­tant for a ma­jor lo­cal brand DAWW Cre­ations and I’m the brand am­bas­sador for two oth­er lo­cal brands, An­gel Glow De­signs and Shoea­holics, hosts/em­cee a num­ber of fash­ion shows such as Trinidad and To­ba­go Fash­ion Week and FAME Caribbean, so peo­ple would see me as be­ing thick in the fash­ion in­dus­try.” This was once all Khadi­ja knew of fash­ion un­til the birth of her con­ser­v­a­tive swim­suit line “Ci­ci­ly Swim Line.”

Khadi­ja tells us that it is her pas­sion for con­ser­v­a­tive swim­suits that pushed her in­to the fash­ion in­dus­try. You might be won­der­ing, “What ex­act­ly is ‘con­ser­v­a­tive swimwear’ and why this type of fash­ion?” Ac­cord­ing to the de­sign­er, con­ser­v­a­tive swimwear is an ide­al op­tion for women like her­self who pre­fer to main­tain cov­er­age even when go­ing swim­ming.

Ci­ci­ly Swim Line is here to re­mind women with a keen sense of self, who are mod­est and con­ser­v­a­tive, that there are swim­suit de­sign­ers that think of them, and en­cour­age them to feel and be beau­ti­ful with­out con­form­ing to the hy­per-sex­u­al way of the world. Ci­ci­ly Swim Line is here to make every­BODY feel beau­ti­ful.

“I pre­fer to dress con­ser­v­a­tive­ly, which al­so ex­tends in­to swim­suits. Be­cause I don’t like my body ex­posed, even when get­ting in­to the wa­ter. I start­ed mak­ing my own swim­suits, which ide­al­ly were swim dress­es. Every­time I would wear one, peo­ple would ask about where I pur­chased it, and I will have to re­spond with the coy ‘I made it my­self’. One time when I was asked if I can make for oth­ers, I replied to the ladies ‘YES, I will make for you all.’

Some­time af­ter that, my friend and men­tor Dex­ter Mus­grave asked, ‘So what about the swim­suits you mak­ing girl’ and I replied in­stinc­tive­ly, ‘I’m work­ing on them’, his re­sponse was, ‘Great! I’m hap­py you are the so­lu­tion to a prob­lem’. I be­lieve that is when the RE­AL de­sire was birthed for me to cre­ate and be per­sis­tent.”

Khadi­ja makes it clear to us that at no time be­ing a fash­ion de­sign­er was any­where on her to-do list. How­ev­er it was the thought of ac­com­mo­dat­ing women like her­self, be­ing a so­lu­tion to a prob­lem and a new year res­o­lu­tion, sent Khadi­ja full speed ahead in­to cre­at­ing and own­ing the process of be­ing a swimwear de­sign­er. She may not have any ter­tiary lev­el train­ing in de­sign but with en­cour­age­ment and a pas­sion, she has taught her­self all that she knows and gives cred­it to her great men­tors. Ci­ci­ly Swim Line brings swim dress­es to a place and time where swim­suits just seem to be get­ting small­er and more naked. Ci­ci­ly pro­vides an op­tion for con­ser­v­a­tive and mod­est women. The style tri­an­gle for Ci­ci­ly is edgy, play­ful and smart.

While the con­cept is not new, and seems to be un­pop­u­lar, Khadi­ja tells us that the idea of swim dress­es is unique. The self-taught de­sign­er ex­press­es that when look­ing at the few swim dress­es or mod­est swim­suits on­line, some of them are not as trendy and styl­ish in de­sign, they seem quite ba­sic. This is how she makes her own de­signs stand out, de­scrib­ing them each as hav­ing a per­son­al­i­ty and DNA of its own. She ex­plains that of­ten­times peo­ple who wear con­ser­v­a­tive swim­suits lament about the ex­pense, and the fact that they have to look abroad/on­line to get them. This is where she sees the lo­cal brand Ci­ci­ly Swim Line fill­ing a void. This swimwear can be found at re­tail stores lo­cal­ly and on so­cial me­dia, where they can be pur­chased and de­liv­ered. More re­cent­ly the de­sign­er has been tap­ping in­to the pop up shop cul­ture.

One cus­tomer said, “OMG, I can go to the beach and pool again!” An­oth­er said on In­sta­gram re­cent­ly “These are beau­ti­ful! Es­pe­cial­ly for moms like me who are con­ser­v­a­tive but still wan­na slay!” Ci­ci­ly Swim Line is sim­ple. With the com­ing of East­er week­end, you may want to con­sid­er your swimwear ear­ly to re­main ready and trendy for the beach­es.

For con­ser­v­a­tive women, Ci­ci­ly swim dress­es are avail­able in XS, S, M, L with plus sizes com­ing soon. The di­men­sions cater pri­mar­i­ly to the shape and make of Caribbean women. Ci­ci­ly Swim Line can be found on Face­book and In­sta­gram @ci­cilyswim­line.