Be­ing in love with fash­ion and see­ing the need among fe­male friends for swimwear items, Vanes­sa Mo­hammed set out to open her very first swimwear bou­tique, Biki­ni Ca­bana, in 2014. Since then, life has been a com­bi­na­tion of jug­gling the en­tre­pre­neur­ial lifestyle and al­so hav­ing a man­age­r­i­al day job at Green Sol Chem­i­cals. On two op­po­site ends of the spec­trum, Vanes­sa al­ter­nates be­tween op­er­at­ing a fash­ion busi­ness and man­ag­ing a port­fo­lio of oil­field prod­ucts and in­dus­tri­al chem­i­cals for wa­ter treat­ment. She de­scribes the hours and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties as “pret­ty de­mand­ing” since Biki­ni Ca­bana has blos­somed over the years in­to more than just a swimwear bou­tique. When she is not work­ing, she loves spend­ing time with fam­i­ly, friends and loved ones do­ing the things that tru­ly mat­ter—find­ing a bal­ance, so­cial­is­ing and stay­ing true to her fam­i­ly tra­di­tions. In an in­ter­view with the WE Mag team Vanes­sa shared more about her­self and this jour­ney, here’s what she had to share:

What are you work­ing on at present, what is keep­ing you ex­cit­ed?

Fash­ion is ever evolv­ing so I’m al­ways en­er­gis­ing the brand, keep­ing up with the lat­est trends and ful­fill­ing the clients’ needs. Many pro­fes­sion­al, work­ing women come by and shop at my bou­tique, so some months ago I de­vel­oped a shirt dress col­lec­tion for my very busy clients who are look­ing for styl­ish wear for their on-the-go lifestyle. A new and ex­cit­ing chal­lenge and some­thing that’s a first-time ex­pe­ri­ence for me is Mon­day wear. I’ve just de­signed and re­leased my first col­lec­tion of Mon­day wear for Car­ni­val 2020. Biki­ni Ca­bana has al­so been deeply in­volved in the car­ni­val for about the last five years, mar­ket­ing our own sec­tion in Bliss. There­fore, Car­ni­val is a very nat­ur­al step and stomp­ing ground for us at Biki­ni Ca­bana.

What are some of your trea­sured mile­stones thus far?

Be­ing an en­tre­pre­neur is a very dy­nam­ic space—one that comes with many chal­lenges and new path­ways. There are all kinds of chal­lenges to over­come but the re­wards are ex­treme­ly ful­fill­ing and pre­cious be­causethey have been hard earned. I’d say a ma­jor and trea­sured mile­stone so far has been open­ing my bou­tique lo­ca­tion and de­vel­op­ing my own la­bel; there’s a spe­cial feel­ing that comes with see­ing your brand’s name print­ed on ma­te­r­i­al. Putting on a run­way show that show­cas­es my la­bel and de­signs has been a pin­na­cle of my vi­sion for Biki­ni Ca­bana and wel­com­ing my clients in the au­di­ence each show is re­al­ly a thrill. I con­sid­er their pres­ence at each pro­duc­tion, a mark of suc­cess for the brand.

What is your ul­ti­mate goal or biggest dream for your fu­ture?

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s style is so unique in the Caribbean and so fash­ion-for­ward. Re­veal­ing and shar­ing our vi­brant look and style to the world and tak­ing the brand in­ter­na­tion­al­ly is my ul­ti­mate goal. To see our very unique sense of taste on the glob­al stage is my biggest dream.

Why do you do what you do?

I do en­joy cul­ti­vat­ing a good eye for fash­ion and I to­tal­ly be­lieve that it is im­por­tant to tru­ly un­der­stand dif­fer­ent age groups, body types and how to help women look and feel their best. My aim is to un­der­stand what women want and cre­ate the last­ing ef­fect of help­ing women at many stages of their lives feel and look out­stand­ing. Pre­sen­ta­tion has al­ways been key for me and I take deep pride in the way my store space im­pacts on both reg­u­lar clients and walk-in cus­tomers. I’ve al­ways been com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing very per­son­al, con­sis­tent high qual­i­ty cus­tomer ser­vice.

Do you have any ad­vice for women who may want to fol­low in your path?

Re­cent­ly, I had the priv­i­lege of speak­ing with a group of stu­dents at the UTT Fash­ion Cam­pus. I shared this quote with them, to give some in­sight in­to my ex­pe­ri­ence. It is ad­vice that I re­ceived when I first start­ed out and it was as help­ful then, as it is now:

“Have con­vic­tion in pur­su­ing your am­bi­tions, don’t be in­tim­i­dat­ed to chart a unique course and be a pi­o­neer

In­vest time in com­pre­hen­sive­ly plan­ning your af­fairs and al­ways en­sure that you have con­tin­gency plans, as things will go side­ways from time to time.

Ap­pre­ci­ate the art of busi­ness and have the pas­sion to make a dif­fer­ence and leave your mark. Fi­nan­cial suc­cess while ex­treme­ly crit­i­cal, is not the on­ly barom­e­ter of suc­cess.

My mantra is “work hard, think big and pray of­ten” and pay close at­ten­tion to those who don’t clap when you win.”