Five-time Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) Large Band of the Year, The Lost Tribe, made its de­but at New York Fash­ion Week (NYFW) this month, bring­ing el­e­ments of its 2026 pre­sen­ta­tion, Is­land Cir­cus, to au­di­ences in Man­hat­tan and Brook­lyn.

The Trinidad Car­ni­val band pre­sent­ed se­lec­tions from Is­land Cir­cus at two events, giv­ing New York-based au­di­ences an op­por­tu­ni­ty to see the cos­tumes and cre­ative work be­hind one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s lead­ing Car­ni­val brands.

The first pre­sen­ta­tion took place on Sep­tem­ber 10 in Man­hat­tan’s Meat­pack­ing Dis­trict as part of a show­case pre­sent­ed by the Caribbean Fash­ion Col­lec­tive.

An open-air sec­tion of the dis­trict was closed to traf­fic for the event, al­low­ing the cos­tumes to be pre­sent­ed along the cob­ble­stone streets among de­sign­er stores and out­door cafés.

The pre­sen­ta­tion at­tract­ed fash­ion ed­i­tors, styl­ists and mem­bers of the pub­lic, in­tro­duc­ing them to the colours, move­ment and con­struc­tion of con­tem­po­rary Trinidad Car­ni­val cos­tumes.

On Sep­tem­ber 13, the show­case moved to Brook­lyn for the Wi Style pre­sen­ta­tion at The Arch­es BK, co-pre­sent­ed by Carib Biz Net­work and Rum & Mu­sic.

The event com­bined run­way pre­sen­ta­tions with a pop-up shop and a fire­side con­ver­sa­tion led by The Lost Tribe Band Leader Valmi­ki Ma­haraj and de­sign­er Shari Win­ches­ter.

For Ma­haraj, ap­pear­ing at NYFW rep­re­sent­ed a sig­nif­i­cant mo­ment in a ca­reer that be­gan in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Car­ni­val and fash­ion in­dus­tries.

“As a child, you sketch in your note­books and copy­books, dream­ing about get­ting to some­where like Fash­ion Week,” said Ma­haraj.

“I re­mem­ber par­tic­i­pat­ing in Caribbean Fash­ion Week at the Hy­att in Port of Spain when I first start­ed my ca­reer in Car­ni­val, so stand­ing in New York has re­al­ly been a full-cir­cle mo­ment. When we were walk­ing down the cob­ble­stones in the Meat­pack­ing Dis­trict, sur­round­ed by de­sign­er stores and din­ner crowds, see­ing our work loved and ap­pre­ci­at­ed in that space was in­cred­i­ble. I didn’t feel like I was walk­ing with Lost Tribe alone—I felt like I was walk­ing with the whole cul­ture on my back.”

Ma­haraj al­so ac­knowl­edged the or­gan­i­sa­tions be­hind the two New York pre­sen­ta­tions and their work to cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for Caribbean cre­atives and busi­ness­es.

“I am so deeply grate­ful to the teams at Caribbean Fash­ion Col­lec­tive, Carib Biz Net­work, and Rum & Mu­sic,” Ma­haraj not­ed.

“They work ex­cep­tion­al­ly hard on the ground to build vi­able, high-vis­i­bil­i­ty plat­forms where Caribbean cre­atives and emerg­ing busi­ness­es can con­nect, col­lab­o­rate, and thrive. The grav­i­tas, warmth, and care with which they wel­comed us was ex­tra­or­di­nary. Then to stand in Brook­lyn and see our com­mu­ni­ty - peo­ple who have flown to Trinidad for years to play mas with us, and sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion Trinida­di­ans who fol­low us from afar—was un­for­get­table. For all these years, they came to us. To fi­nal­ly bring our work di­rect­ly to them in their space, to see them wear­ing pieces of past cos­tumes, and to share that pride to­geth­er is some­thing I will hold on­to for a long time.”

The New York en­gage­ment al­so pro­vid­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty for The Lost Tribe to ex­plore ways of ex­pand­ing its ed­u­ca­tion­al ini­tia­tive, Car­ni­val Cam­pus, to North Amer­i­ca.

“The hunger for our de­sign the­o­ry and cul­tur­al his­to­ry up here is re­al,” added Ma­haraj.

“We are ac­tive­ly ex­plor­ing ways to bring Car­ni­val Cam­pus to New York, work­ing along­side ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions and part­ners like Carib Biz Net­work to see how we can build hy­brid pro­grammes—com­bin­ing dig­i­tal de­sign mod­ules with in-per­son mas­ter­class­es here in the city.”

The NYFW pre­sen­ta­tions fea­tured cos­tumes de­vel­oped col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly by The Lost Tribe’s ros­ter of de­sign­ers, high­light­ing the cre­ative and tech­ni­cal work that goes in­to the band’s an­nu­al Car­ni­val pre­sen­ta­tion.

For The Lost Tribe, the New York ap­pear­ances form part of its wider ef­fort to present Trinidad Car­ni­val’s de­sign, crafts­man­ship and cul­tur­al tra­di­tions to in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ences while cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for the art form be­yond the Car­ni­val sea­son.