SAN­DRA L BLOOD

For Nicholas Deabreau, the steel­pan is more than mu­sic. It is the force that set his cre­ative life in mo­tion.

An alum­nus of St Mar­garet’s Boys’ An­gli­can Pri­ma­ry School, Deabreau dis­cov­ered his love for pan at the school, an ex­pe­ri­ence that would shape more than two decades of his life.

“Pan ig­nit­ed some­thing in me I nev­er knew ex­ist­ed,” he said.

To­day, Deabreau is the for­mer cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive ad­min­is­tra­tive as­sis­tant of Pan Trin­ba­go and the cur­rent North Re­gion vice-chair­man. But his con­tri­bu­tion to the steel­pan move­ment ex­tends far be­yond ad­min­is­tra­tion.

In 2015, he was among the young pan play­ers from St Mar­garet’s who helped make glob­al pan his­to­ry when the school’s youth steel or­ches­tra per­formed at Carnegie Hall in Mid­town Man­hat­tan, New York, on June 17.

The achieve­ment placed the en­sem­ble among on­ly two Trinidad and To­ba­go steel­bands to have per­formed at the pres­ti­gious venue—and made it the on­ly pri­ma­ry school steel or­ches­tra in the world to do so.

For Deabreau, the ex­pe­ri­ence be­came an­oth­er source of mo­ti­va­tion to en­cour­age young pan play­ers to strive for ex­cel­lence.

He urged the stu­dents to con­duct them­selves im­pec­ca­bly while play­ing their mu­sic with skill and flair. Lat­er, as man­ag­er of the band, he helped steer it to­wards an­oth­er land­mark achieve­ment: be­com­ing the first and, to date, on­ly school alum­ni steel or­ches­tra, St Mar­garet’s Su­per Stars Steel Or­ches­tra.

But while pan has been a defin­ing part of Deabreau’s life, it is not his on­ly cre­ative out­let.

Since 2009, he has al­so been a vi­brant pan­man and mas play­er with Trinidad All Stars Steel Or­ches­tra (TAS­SO), the ten-time Na­tion­al Panora­ma Cham­pi­on and the first steel­band to win Trinidad’s Na­tion­al Band of the Year ti­tle in 2014/2015.

Be­tween his “dai­ly rigid yet pas­sion­ate of­fice and pan com­mit­ments”, Deabreau has carved out an­oth­er space for his cre­ativ­i­ty—fash­ion.

A pas­sion shaped by his moth­er

Deabreau’s in­ter­est in fash­ion be­gan at an ear­ly age and was in­flu­enced by ad­vice from his moth­er.

“I have a pas­sion for fash­ion stim­u­lat­ed by the fire that pan ig­nites in me and my mom’s words,” he said.

When he was younger, his moth­er en­cour­aged him to pay par­tic­u­lar at­ten­tion to his ap­pear­ance and per­son­al pre­sen­ta­tion.

“When I was younger, my mom care­ful­ly told me that I’m fat, and fat peo­ple have a stig­ma, so she al­ways en­cour­aged me to look and smell good,” he re­called.

That ad­vice sparked a fas­ci­na­tion with cloth­ing and style. Deabreau be­gan ob­serv­ing how oth­er peo­ple dressed, par­tic­u­lar­ly those who were plump, and imag­in­ing how dif­fer­ent wardrobes could be styled.

Over time, friends and ac­quain­tances be­gan ap­proach­ing him for ad­vice on fash­ion and oth­er mat­ters.

The in­ter­est even­tu­al­ly de­vel­oped in­to de­sign.

“I’m self-taught; have ab­solute­ly no for­mal train­ing/ed­u­ca­tion in fash­ion/de­sign­ing, so many re­fer to me as a non-pro­fes­sion­al, but I have a very nat­ur­al cre­ative eye for de­sign in terms of how I mix and match colours, fab­rics, co­or­di­na­tion and wear,” he said.

De­sign­ing for pan and be­yond

Deabreau’s eye for fash­ion has earned him a place on sev­er­al uni­form com­mit­tees, in­clud­ing those as­so­ci­at­ed with St Mar­garet’s, TAS­SO and Pan Trin­ba­go.

He has ei­ther de­signed or con­tributed to nu­mer­ous uni­forms that have at­tract­ed pub­lic ad­mi­ra­tion.

“My mind is al­ways work­ing on the next de­sign,” he said.

His work has in­clud­ed the out­fit worn by sec­ondary school grad­u­ate Levi John in 2023-2024, the 2024 Pan Is More Beau­ti­ful Sin­gle Pan win­ner Plat­inum Steel Or­ches­tra’s Best Dressed Band pre­sen­ta­tion, sev­er­al Pan Trin­ba­go “I Love Pan” jer­seys and TAS­SO’s dis­tinc­tive uni­form for Mu­si­cal Show­down in De Big Yard dur­ing the A Taste of Car­ni­val 2022 cel­e­bra­tion.

For Deabreau, fash­ion is not sim­ply about cloth­ing. It is an­oth­er form of cre­ative ex­pres­sion—one that al­lows him to bring the same imag­i­na­tion and en­er­gy he brings to the pan.

His de­signs, he said, make clear state­ments: “bold, out of the box, con­fi­dent, un­ortho­dox, yet sleek” and not nec­es­sar­i­ly “for the faint of heart.”

The five Ps

Be­hind Deabreau’s cre­ative pur­suits is a phi­los­o­phy cen­tred on prepa­ra­tion.

His five P watch­words—“Pri­or Prepa­ra­tion Pre­vents Poor Per­for­mance”—serve as a per­son­al guide for suc­cess.

He be­lieves the prin­ci­ple can help any­one be­come pro­duc­tive and achieve great­ness.

That phi­los­o­phy al­so in­forms his con­cern for young peo­ple, par­tic­u­lar­ly those who pos­sess nat­ur­al cre­ative abil­i­ties but may not have the sup­port or op­por­tu­ni­ties need­ed to de­vel­op them.

Deabreau be­lieves the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem should do more to nur­ture cre­ativ­i­ty from the pri­ma­ry school lev­el and pro­vide young cre­atives with path­ways to­wards en­tre­pre­neur­ship.

He sees un­tapped po­ten­tial among Trinidad and To­ba­go’s youth and wants them to un­der­stand that their cir­cum­stances should not dic­tate their fu­ture.

“Don’t let the area you’re from; or your phys­i­cal fea­tures de­ter­mine your fu­ture or al­ti­tude,” he ad­vis­es.

He en­cour­ages young peo­ple to main­tain a good con­science, dream big and pur­sue their am­bi­tions while prepar­ing them­selves for the chal­lenges that life in­evitably brings.

“Al­ways keep a good con­science, dream big and fol­low your dreams as long as they will not bring de­spair, and cru­cial­ly, be pre­pared for the ar­rows that life may throw your way, avoid them, and you will be pro­duc­tive­ly suc­cess­ful.”

From pan to the run­way

For more than two decades, the steel­pan has been the sound­track to Deabreau’s cre­ative jour­ney.

It in­tro­duced him to per­for­mance, dis­ci­pline and team­work, took him to one of the world’s most cel­e­brat­ed con­cert halls and placed him at the cen­tre of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s pan move­ment.

Fash­ion has giv­en him an­oth­er av­enue through which to ex­press him­self.

The two pas­sions may ap­pear dif­fer­ent, but for Deabreau they are con­nect­ed by the same cre­ative im­pulse.

“I’ve learned how to avoid those ar­rows, and I in­tend to con­tin­ue be­ing vig­i­lant, keep­ing fo­cus on great­ness, my de­signs and be­com­ing a fash­ion-de­sign star one day,” he said.

His am­bi­tion is clear: to con­tin­ue de­vel­op­ing his craft and ul­ti­mate­ly es­tab­lish him­self as a recog­nised fash­ion de­sign­er.

And if his jour­ney in pan is any in­di­ca­tion, Deabreau un­der­stands the val­ue of pa­tience, prepa­ra­tion and per­sis­tence.

“I love de­sign­ing just as much as I love play­ing pan.”