SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

When mas­quer­aders took to the streets in Ch­agua­nas for Car­ni­val, daz­zling in feath­ers, beads and bold colour, much of the spec­ta­cle can be traced back to the steady hands and sharp mind of 25-year-old de­sign­er Maris­sa Bridglal.

By pro­fes­sion, Bridglal is a civ­il en­gi­neer. By pas­sion, she is the cre­ative force be­hind one of cen­tral Trinidad’s most suc­cess­ful Car­ni­val bands. For 2026, she once again led the de­sign team for Stealth Tech’s “Re­turn of the Red In­di­ans,” mark­ing the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year the band cap­tured the cov­et­ed Band of the Year ti­tle un­der the lead­er­ship of her fa­ther, Mano Bridglal.

Car­ni­val, she said, was nev­er a dis­tant dream—it was home.

“I end­ed up as a de­sign­er through my dad, Man­noo Bridglal,” she ex­plained. “He is a me­chan­i­cal en­gi­neer with a love for Car­ni­val cul­ture and is the band leader of Stealth Tech Ltd’s Car­ni­val com­mit­tee. Be­fore this, he led an­oth­er band, Perser­vance Sports, which start­ed back in 1999. I lit­er­al­ly grew up in this and found a pas­sion for it. The ap­ple didn’t fall far from the tree.”

That blend of en­gi­neer­ing pre­ci­sion and cul­tur­al im­mer­sion has be­come her sig­na­ture. Bridglal ap­proached each cos­tume not just as an artis­tic state­ment but as a struc­tur­al chal­lenge.

“My de­signs are beau­ti­ful and struc­tural­ly sound,” she said. “Like many of the large com­pet­ing bands you see in Port-of-Spain, our pieces can be tak­en apart and as­sem­bled back to­geth­er clos­er to the stages.”

It is here that her en­gi­neer­ing train­ing shines. Bal­ance, weight dis­tri­b­u­tion and dura­bil­i­ty are con­sid­ered as care­ful­ly as colour schemes and em­bell­ish­ments. The re­sult: cos­tumes that com­mand at­ten­tion with­out com­pro­mis­ing com­fort or sta­bil­i­ty.

Al­though Car­ni­val con­sumes months of her year, Bridglal is clear-eyed about her pri­or­i­ties. En­gi­neer­ing, she said, re­mains her foun­da­tion.

“It’s what pays the bills,” she not­ed. “My time at Car­ni­val is vol­un­tary, as we are a non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion. Our hard work is just for the love of mas.”

Still, her voice soft­ened when she spoke of the fes­ti­val.

“Car­ni­val will al­ways have my heart. Once the town of Chase Vil­lage calls my name for mas, I’ll be there.”

Be­hind the scenes, Bridglal’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ties ex­tend far be­yond sketch­ing de­signs. She over­sees rough­ly 90 per cent of the band’s cos­tume con­cepts and works with her team to mass-pro­duce the out­fits for mas­quer­aders. She al­so man­ages play­er reg­is­tra­tion and cos­tume dis­tri­b­u­tion—a lo­gis­ti­cal un­der­tak­ing as de­mand­ing as any en­gi­neer­ing project.

Yet she is quick to de­flect praise.

“My de­signs are just vi­sions. With­out my team to help me make them a re­al­i­ty, I am noth­ing,” she said. “They mo­ti­vate me to keep push­ing even when the work is over­whelm­ing. Once my team is with the band, I am with the band. I will nev­er aban­don my team or work with­out them.” She men­tioned fel­low mem­bers of her de­sign team, in­clud­ing Ki­ran Sankar, Avinash Rame­sar and Navin­dra Kr­ish­na, among oth­ers, who as­sist­ed.

For Bridglal, Car­ni­val is more than com­pe­ti­tion or ti­tles. It is fam­i­ly, com­mu­ni­ty and con­ti­nu­ity—a lega­cy en­gi­neered in steel, stitched in fab­ric and car­ried proud­ly through the streets of cen­tral Trinidad.