I have come to re­alise that it was no ac­ci­dent that I was po­si­tioned, last year, in the fall, at New York’s icon­ic Fash­ion In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy when the Com­mon­wealth Fash­ion Ex­change (CFE) dis­play was show­cased at the Pomer­antz Art and De­sign Cen­ter, for the first time out­side of the UK. There, I proud­ly wit­nessed the won­drous ‘Moth’, an in­tel­li­gent de­sign by Meil­ing us­ing the prin­ci­ples of sus­tain­able ex­cel­lence. For this am­bi­tious CFE ini­tia­tive, part­nered with the sus­tain­abil­i­ty con­sul­tan­cy, Eco-Age, the for­mi­da­ble de­sign­er was paired with Do­mini­can ar­ti­san Vanes­sa Win­ston whose corset belt, in­tri­cate­ly dec­o­rat­ed with ham­mered but­ter­flies, matched or­gan­i­cal­ly with her co­conut-fi­bre wo­ven gown. I re­mem­ber ob­serv­ing the guests, from the world of art and fash­ion, be­com­ing en­am­oured by the hand-em­broi­dered gown of or­gandie, silk and leather, trans­par­ent­ly sheath­ing a pair of trousers made from up-cy­cled In­di­an fab­ric. In ad­di­tion to my own land­mark in­road at FIT, I was fur­ther con­sumed with na­tion­al pride and be­sot­ted with re­gion­al pres­tige.

Fast for­ward to last Sun­day evening, where I was di­rect­ing the Hot Cou­ture in­stall­ment at the 4th An­nu­al Of­fi­cers’ Ball, a char­i­ty fundrais­er of the Make It Hap­pen Foun­da­tion, un­der the dis­tin­guished pa­tron­age of the First La­dy of St Lu­cia, Raquel Duboulay-Chas­tanet. There I was, ush­er­ing on­to the run­way stel­lar mod­el Denise Lay, in this same-said ex­quis­ite cre­ation to open Meil­ing’s im­pec­ca­ble col­lec­tion en noir. My pro­duc­er, Mae Wayne, was al­ready ex­hil­a­rat­ed by the seam­less run of the show, and then we were about to cli­max the event, with the Prime Min­is­ter, Allen Chas­tanet, and his daugh­ter, Ryan, with the black clas­sic Meil­ing sil­hou­ettes, note­wor­thy of which was her new kite 2020, from her UN­RAV­ELLED col­lec­tion. Such ef­fort­less style im­bued with Caribbean pres­ence and in­vest­ed with glob­al ap­peal. For me, it was a nos­tal­gic flash-back to that sig­nal mo­ment in time which co­in­cid­ed with my sig­na­ture turn­ing-point op­por­tu­ni­ty to cel­e­brate the Caribbean Aes­thet­ic at FIT.

To para­phrase a com­ment from the ubiq­ui­tous ar­biter of taste, se­nior as­so­ciate ed­i­tor at the Ja­maica Ob­serv­er, and style gu­ru her­self, Novia Mc­Don­ald-Whyte, who sat among the il­lus­tri­ous beau monde at this phe­nom­e­nal so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty plat­form, “Our de­sign­ers can present rep­utably along­side and match un­equiv­o­cal­ly with, the best of de­sign­ers at any giv­en in­ter­na­tion­al ex­po­si­tion” ref­er­enc­ing the work of Meil­ing and the Cloth who had been se­lect­ed to be at this hall­mark, mile­stone event. Al­so fea­tured at this dis­tinc­tive dé­filé de mode were St Lu­cian fash­ion de­sign­ers Es­ther Joseph of Ku­um­ba De­signs, Lyn Bris­tol of LBM De­signs and Trinida­di­an pre­mier fash­ion hous­es—Ecliffe Elie, DAWW Cre­ations and An­tho­ny Reid Menswear at Meil­ing.

Meil­ing’s pre­sen­ta­tion was in­deed a col­lec­tion of her favourite less-is-more style. Her un­der­stat­ed el­e­gance smacks of min­i­mal­ist so­phis­ti­ca­tion and chic aplomb. No over­done af­fec­ta­tion, but sim­ply ref­er­enc­ing clas­sic shapes—in cool, care­free baby­dolls; nov­el, airy kites; lazy, slinky palaz­zo jump­suits—with de­con­struct­ed cord­ing or faux-Shake­speare­an col­lar—just for con­ver­sa­tion-starter in­dul­gence; fifties swing skirts; sen­su­al Bo­hemi­an ac­cents in peas­ant-like bodices and lace-trimmed hem­lines, all of which at­test to mas­ter­ful fash­ion imag­ing through re­gion­al sto­ry-telling yet with­in an in­ter­na­tion­al nar­ra­tive. It’s sheer nos­tal­gia, ev­i­denced, no doubt, by con­tem­po­rary fash­ions coursed down a mem­o­ry lane of style and coloured by a noc­tur­nal palette. For all in­tents and pur­pos­es, isn’t inim­itable style cycli­cal?

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MOD­ELS| Denise Lay, Bernel­la Al­bert­son -Veli­nor, Aliyel Fontenelle, Tang­ie Mar­la, Her­mi­na Nestor, Ke­na Fos­ter