Over 400 cre­ative in­dus­try pro­fes­sion­als and en­thu­si­asts flocked to the Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad on Mon­day evening for a riv­et­ing dis­cus­sion on “De­vel­op­ing the Cre­ative Econ­o­my.” The dy­nam­ic di­a­logue, co-host­ed by Caribbean Fash­ion Evan­ge­list Richard Young and Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith, was a part of the O2N Style 2: Style Me Caribbean ex­pe­ri­ence, which has ex­pand­ed in its sec­ond in­car­na­tion to a one-week event tourism fes­ti­val that cel­e­brates the re­gion’s in­her­ent tra­di­tions.

Cer­tain­ly, the for­mat of the O2N Style pan­el was one that pushed the en­ve­lope be­yond the norm. With 14 of the coun­try’s top cre­ative con­trib­u­tors in ar­eas such as mu­sic, an­i­ma­tion, tourism, tech­nol­o­gy, fash­ion, Car­ni­val, fi­nance, event man­age­ment and en­ter­tain­ment, or­gan­is­ers treat­ed at­ten­dees to a dy­namized di­a­logue that ex­plored the pro­fes­sion­al ex­pe­ri­ences of no­table pro­fes­sion­als such as en­ter­tain­ment sa­vant Eliz­a­beth “Liz” Mon­tano, For­mer NCC Chair­man Lor­raine Pouchet, an­i­ma­tion pi­o­neer Camille Selvon Abra­hams, Cul­ture Spe­cial­ist Nadya Shah, Copy­right Ed­u­ca­tor Fa­bi­en Al­fon­so and Se­nior Con­sul­tant, Dr Ralph Hen­ry, just to name a few. The pan­elists dared to re­con­noi­ter some of the well-known nu­ances in the Caribbean Cre­ative space—with re­searcher and lec­tur­er Dr Suzanne Burke open­ly ex­plain­ing on the pan­el that “the core of the chal­lenge of the de­vel­op­ment of the cre­ative econ­o­my lo­cal­ly is a lack of cre­ative con­fi­dence.” The en­thu­si­as­tic in­ter­change was round­ed up by Fash­ion De­sign­er Di­anne Hunte, Se­nior Tourism An­a­lyst Kevon Wil­son, cre­ative strate­gist Rachael Col­ly­more, SISU Glob­al Well­ness Founder Dr Safeeya Mo­hammed, Event Man­age­ment con­nois­seur Lisa Ghany, Petro­chem­i­cal ex­pert Michele Ar­june, Fash­ionTT Gen­er­al Man­ag­er Lisa-Marie Daniel.

To the de­light of the packed au­di­ence, the two-part pan­el was punc­tu­at­ed by a teas­er pre­sen­ta­tion from var­i­ous de­sign­ers who are slat­ed to show­case at the O2N Style 2 Fash­ion show­case on Sun­day 26th May 2019 at O2 Park. These Caribbean fash­ion pow­er­hous­es in­clud­ed Heather Jones, the Cloth, Charu Lochan Dass (CLD), Shaun Grif­fith Perez, Saleem Samuel, Shel­don Warn­er, Har­vey Robert­son, Han­nah Charles, DAWW Cre­ations, Afrode­si­ak, Do­minique La Roche and a mag­nif­i­cent cos­tume de­sign from the award-win­ning K2K Al­liance and Part­ners.

O2N Style 2 at O2 Park is a one-week fes­ti­val that has evolved to be­come an all-in­clu­sive, mush­room­ing event tourism ex­pe­ri­ence whose val­ues on mul­ti­di­men­sion­al­i­ty and sus­tain­abil­i­ty wel­comes cre­atives—fash­ion de­sign­ers, beau­ti­cians, graph­ic artists, vi­su­al artists, per­form­ing artistes, an­i­ma­tors, well­ness en­thu­si­asts, culi­nary artists, film and mu­sic cre­ators to come and share in the wealth of our Caribbean Aes­thet­ic.

With the in­tent to cre­ate, con­nect and co­here, the O2N Foun­da­tion, chaired by Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith and cre­ative­ly di­rect­ed by Richard Young, moves swift­ly ahead with two days of Trunk Show ac­tiv­i­ties at the Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad on Wednes­day 22 and Thurs­day 23rd May 2019 re­spec­tive­ly. The grand af­fair will cul­mi­nate with a free en­try cre­ative ex­hi­bi­tion space on Sat­ur­day 25th May 2019 at O2 Park, and will re­turn to the same venue for a sen­sa­tion­al Caribbean Fash­ion show­case like no oth­er on Sun­day 26th May 2019. Tick­ets for Sun­day’s soiree are avail­able on www.sun­tixx.com or by call­ing 321-8064.

O2N Style 2 at O2 Park....

Style Me Caribbean is pow­ered by: 

O2 Park

Rent-a-Amp

Guardian Me­dia Ltd

Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad

NDG Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Con­sult­ing

Fash­ionTT

Ex­porTT

Un­do­tish­ment

Li­at

Up­point Inc

Cham­bers Me­dia So­lu­tions

SISU Glob­al Well­ness

Kall­co

Me­dia 21

iCre­ate Events

Sound Vi­sion

Man­nequins Caribbean

Se­cu­ri­ty An­a­lysts Ser­vices

Fire One.