There ex­ist two sides of the coin in ref­er­enc­ing our Caribbean style. There is a lux­u­ry lifestyle as­pi­ra­tional fash­ion a la Clau­dia Pe­gus and then there is an or­gan­ic, bo­hemi­an tex­ture, the aes­thet­ic of The Cloth. Both were re­cent­ly fea­tured as brand am­bas­sadors at the Mon­tano’s Choco­late Com­pa­ny cock­tail at the Hilton. In a word, our fash­ion lan­guage can be bilin­gual. So much so, that the soul of our fash­ion sen­si­bil­i­ty does pos­sess the com­ple­men­tary yin and yang, both el­e­ments be­ing part of the fas­ci­nat­ing is­land hy­brid that is our Caribbean trade­mark.

Clau­dia Pe­gus Cou­ture of­fers a so­phis­ti­cat­ed ‘re­sort’ wear cater­ing to ‘les poseuses’, the lime­light fash­ion­istas, those wish­ing to make that dra­mat­ic en­trée. She showed off a he­do­nis­tic ad­ven­ture in noc­tur­nal panache in sheer geor­gette em­bell­ished with ex­quis­ite no­tions which be­speak a quin­tes­sen­tial whim­sy yet rev­el­ing in an un­mit­i­gat­ed op­u­lence. Oth­er sin­u­ous sheath en­sem­bles, en noir, lan­guid­ly ca­ressed the bod­ies in silk, lace, se­quinned knits bar­ing shoul­ders, cleav­age and trans­par­ent peeps at body con­tours. This is the stuff that the suave so­cialite or even the debonair debu­tante is made of or rather is dressed in. Pop­ping in the cen­tre of her Caribbean cou­ture was a cham­pagne-hued Gre­co-Ro­man in­spired show­stop­per to coun­ter­poise the seem­ing­ly Neo-Goth­ic lux­u­ri­ant black. Quite ap­pro­pri­ate­ly, these recher­ché de­sign­er looks are be­fit­ting the up­com­ing sea­son of the Yule­tide soirées.

Jux­ta­posed to the gus­to of Pe­gus is the oth­er side of the coin of Caribbean ‘re­sort’. Linens, cot­tons and silks in lazy sil­hou­ettes have be­come the hall­mark ex­pres­sions of the cre­ative di­rec­tor of the Cloth, Robert Young. The Cloth brand has been de­fined, quite iden­ti­fi­ably, over the years, as for­ev­er cut­ting-edge, al­ways un­pre­dictable but above all con­sis­tent­ly in­no­v­a­tive. One thing in com­mon is that both de­sign­er la­bels pride them­selves on un­matched ex­cel­lence of fin­ish. It’s sim­ply a mat­ter of taste for the dis­cern­ing fash­ion pas­sion­née. With the Cloth, she has the op­tion of be­ing the mod­ern-day eco-en­thu­si­ast, don­ning breath­ing tex­tiles in an idio­syn­crat­ic, some may say icon­o­clas­tic, in­ter­pre­ta­tion. This is the sig­na­ture char­ac­ter­is­tic of the Cloth de­signs. Rel­ish­ing earth tones and fes­ti­val hues - mus­tards, olive greens and in­di­go blues - as well as un­der­scor­ing with mat­te blacks and camel khakis, their show­ing in­vari­ably re­flects an eclec­tic, cos­mopoli­tan tem­plate, mir­ror­ing our cul­tur­al mo­sa­ic. A lit­tle non-con­formist, but im­pec­ca­bly craft­ed, so as to at­tract a first-timer to their side of the coin, The Cloth de­signs have com­pelled Christ­mas gift-givers to box their out­side-the-box mer­chan­dise for sur­pris­ing Tan­nen­baum de­lights.

‘Re­sort’ is mere­ly a met­ro­pol­i­tan ap­pel­la­tion of our lifestyle ta­pes­try. We can be ei­ther side of the fash­ion coin, at any giv­en time. For we are the van­guard style ar­biters with a myr­i­ad of in­flu­ences and a plur­al reser­voir of in­spi­ra­tion. Where else can you get New World style with a nov­el spin, em­a­nat­ing from a mul­ti-eth­nic, com­po­si­tion bi­og­ra­phy! Our di­ver­si­ty gives us an edge and a dis­tinc­tion that al­lows us to serve up jux­ta­po­si­tion with­in our in­di­vid­ual fash­ion menus, be it Clau­dia Pe­gus Cou­ture or The Cloth.

Claudia Pegus Couture Nocturnal panache in sheer georgette and other sinuous sheath ensembles... in silk, lace, sequined knits baring shoulders, cleavage and transparent peeeps at body contours

The Cloth Relishing earth tones and festival hues - mustards, olive greens and indigo blues - as well as underscoring with matte blacks and camel khakis,

Ash Loveridge

Ash Loveridge