SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­l­sandy@gmail.com

Long be­fore she be­came one of Trinidad’s well-known fash­ion fig­ures, Lyn­da Os­borne was a dis­ap­point­ed teenag­er with a pair of scis­sors, a vi­sion—and a cre­ation of her own.

At just 13, when her moth­er didn’t make her a Car­ni­val out­fit, Os­borne took mat­ters in­to her own hands, got fab­ric and start­ed craft­ing her first de­sign from de­con­struct­ed shirts.

That bold act of self-ex­pres­sion set the stage for what would be­come a life­long ca­reer in fash­ion.

Born in east Trinidad, Os­borne went on to launch her Fash­ion Wear busi­ness in 1980, bold­ly leav­ing be­hind the se­cu­ri­ty of a sta­ble job and a salary that many craved in an ac­counts de­part­ment.

“My mum, Kimy­ouk Wong-Os­borne, sewed and was al­so a gar­ment con­struc­tion teacher at John Don­ald­son In­sti­tute (JDI) and Tran­quil­li­ty Sec­ondary School, Port of Spain (PoS).

“I nev­er liked sewing, but when I was 13 and my mum de­cid­ed to take me to Car­ni­val, but didn’t make me a new out­fit, I be­came very dis­ap­point­ed. When she left for the shop, I dis­sect­ed some shirts and made my­self my first out­fit.”

Os­borne harkened back to hav­ing un­ex­pect­ed­ly at­tend­ed two sewing cours­es at JDI as a sur­prise from her el­e­men­tary teacher. She spent her spare time while at North­east­ern Col­lege in San­gre Grande draw­ing peo­ple in out­fits, de­sign­ing and cre­at­ing at her work­place, open­ing her first fash­ion shop in her home­town, and quick­ly be­com­ing well-known for her unique and fash­ion­able styles.

She at­tract­ed or­ders for wed­dings, evening and pageant gowns, as well as unique out­fits, and even­tu­al­ly be­came a judge for lo­cal pageants.

Os­borne said she had a nat­ur­al ap­ti­tude to­wards the in­dus­try’s busi­ness process­es. Two years lat­er, she ex­pand­ed to man­u­fac­tur­ing lim­it­ed edi­tions of her de­signs un­der the la­bel Lyn Borne, ser­vic­ing prime lo­cal stores and bou­tiques.

“Sin­gle-hand­ed­ly, I con­trolled the sales, de­sign­ing, cut­ting, and fab­ric sur­face treat­ments. Dur­ing the ini­tial three years in man­u­fac­tur­ing, my styl­ish sun-time pants sets, dress­es and skirt sets in­clud­ed in­ter­est­ing de­tail­ing, as well as screen-print­ing, hand-paint­ing and Shi­bori-dye­ing on cot­tons, linens and jer­sey fab­rics,” Os­borne proud­ly re­vealed.

“My Christ­mas col­lec­tions saw unique cuts, us­ing de­sign­er tex­tiles and se­quinned fab­rics.”

Os­borne said she pro­duced lim­it­ed-edi­tion trendy ca­su­al wear, swim­suits, se­mi-for­mal wear and evening wear, while con­tin­u­ing to pro­vide cus­tom-made fash­ions to in­di­vid­ual clients.

In 1990, Lyn Borne took Trinidad’s very first fash­ion week, Colour Me Caribbean, by storm. It was held at the Hilton Trinidad in Port-of-Spain, and ini­ti­at­ed by fash­ion ed­i­tor Rose­mary Stone. There­after, she be­gan ap­proach­ing whole­sale buy­ers and con­tin­u­ous­ly de­liv­ered. Os­borne’s next year proved very event­ful.

Up­on in­vi­ta­tion, she col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in a pro­gramme with the Japan­ese Em­bassy and Good­will In­dus­tries’ School for the Phys­i­cal­ly Chal­lenged, where she was in­tro­duced to Saori handweav­ing.

She even­tu­al­ly de­vel­oped a teach­ing and pro­duc­tion pro­gramme for Good­will In­dus­tries, where stu­dents learned to cre­ate purs­es, shawls, and soft shoes.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, her first at­tempt at de­sign­ing a pageant gown—for the Miss Re­pub­lic Car­ni­val Beau­ty Pageant in 1991—won Best Gown. Years ear­li­er, in her 20s, Os­borne had placed as first run­ner-up in the Miss Port-of-Spain Trinidad Beau­ty Pageant, hav­ing been trained and groomed by the then-renowned pageant queen-mak­er, Kim Sabeeney.

In the same year, at the re­quest of the House of Jacqui mod­el­ling agency, Os­borne pro­duced a fash­ion show fea­tur­ing her de­signs for del­e­gates of the In­ter­na­tion­al Com­mu­ni­ty Ed­u­ca­tion As­so­ci­a­tion (ICEA) dur­ing their an­nu­al con­fer­ence held at the Hilton Trinidad. She was sub­se­quent­ly ho­n­oured with an award for her con­tri­bu­tion.

In 1992, in re­sponse to an ur­gent need, Os­borne cre­ative­ly de­signed cos­tumes for the then-pop­u­lar Car­ni­val band Bar­barosa, se­cur­ing a five-year con­tract.

Ven­tur­ing in­to new and un­fa­mil­iar ter­ri­to­ry, Os­borne launched a busi­ness-wear seg­ment that quick­ly at­tract­ed her first two clients—the Cit­rus Grow­ers As­so­ci­a­tion and West In­di­an To­bac­co Com­pa­ny.

In 1998, she trav­elled abroad, where she ex­plored and ex­per­i­ment­ed with in­ter­na­tion­al fash­ion. She dab­bled with win­ter coat fab­rics such as tweed and cash­mere—ma­te­ri­als un­com­mon in her Caribbean home­land. She al­so in­cor­po­rat­ed Duchess and Em­press bridal silks, along with pure linens and raw silk, which were rare finds in Trinidad at the time.

Os­borne said de­sign­ing comes eas­i­ly and nat­u­ral­ly, and she has a knack for de­vel­op­ing her own ad­vanced tech­niques from ba­sic skills. With the ad­vent of the com­put­er, she quick­ly taught her­self and up­grad­ed her art and de­sign skills on the dig­i­tal plat­form.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, in 2007, Os­borne be­came a co-lec­tur­er in Fash­ion In­dus­try Stud­ies and Com­put­er-Aid­ed De­sign in Fash­ion at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, teach­ing part of the third-year cur­ricu­lum for the Hu­man Ecol­o­gy Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence de­gree. Com­mit­ted to con­tin­u­ous learn­ing, the fol­low­ing year she em­barked on a four-year course of study, earn­ing a Bach­e­lor of Fine Arts de­gree with ho­n­ours in Fash­ion De­sign. This deep­ened her un­der­stand­ing of the in­dus­try’s for­mal sys­tems and al­lowed her to draw in­sight­ful com­par­isons with re­al-world prac­tice.

In 2013, Os­borne re­sumed op­er­a­tions un­der her full name, Lyn­da Os­borne. Two years lat­er, she pre­sent­ed her Trel­lis Col­lec­tion at Fash­ionTT’s in­au­gur­al show, Mod­eTT, held at the Radis­son Ho­tel. The event launched Mod­eTT’s first Look­Book and served as a pre­lude to fu­ture edi­tions of Fash­ionTT’s Look­Book se­ries.

“As the in­dus­try be­gan fac­ing chal­lenges, I con­cen­trat­ed on in-per­son be­spoke and cus­tom-made fash­ion wear,” Os­borne said.

“I grad­u­al­ly up­dat­ed my web­site for e-com­merce in 2022, and up­grad­ed my com­put­er-aid­ed and AI-as­sist­ed de­sign­ing in 2023,” she added.

“I’m known to be a do-it-your­self per­son, though many say I should des­ig­nate, but most en­tre­pre­neurs can’t or don’t. I’m not on­ly about mak­ing clothes. De­spite my age, I’m in­tent­ly keep­ing abreast of the dig­i­tal world.”

Os­borne cre­at­ed her own web­site and re­designed it mul­ti­ple times, re­fin­ing it un­til it matched her ex­act vi­sion.

“My mum al­ways told me, ‘Nev­er give up!’ She died in Oc­to­ber 2021, leav­ing a gap­ing hole in my heart. I miss her dear­ly. De­sign­ing and teach­ing keep me up, and every one of my pieces and every new stu­dent is in her ho­n­our.”