Car­ni­val Is Fash­ion 2 de­liv­ered an elec­tri­fy­ing show­case of cre­ativ­i­ty, at­tract­ing a larg­er au­di­ence than last year and trans­form­ing the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah Grand Stage in­to a vi­brant cel­e­bra­tion of fash­ion, mu­sic and mas­quer­ade.

He would prob­a­bly not ap­prove of the com­par­i­son, but meet­ing pan con­nois­seur and his­to­ri­an Ian Franklin at a pa­n­yard the morn­ing af­ter com­pet­i­tive dra­ma is like mo­men­tar­i­ly oc­cu­py­ing li­brary space—soft, mea­sured tones, po­lite re­straint, and a vast­ness of read­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble knowl­edge and wis­dom.

These are un­doubt­ed­ly two of the most pop­u­lar lines for the 2026 Car­ni­val sea­son, cour­tesy of Full Blown’s hit song Re­spect­ful­ly Yours.

Be­fore he be­came the voice wak­ing up the na­tion on The Boom 94.1, Kwe­si “Su­pahype” Lee was al­ready telling Caribbean sto­ries—qui­et­ly, vi­su­al­ly, de­lib­er­ate­ly—through a cam­era lens.

There are many chal­lenges that we go through as women as we age. Dur­ing menopause, women tend to ex­pe­ri­ence many dif­fer­ent symp­toms. Typ­i­cal­ly, women ex­pe­ri­ence menopause be­tween the ages of 45 and 55 years. Some women ex­pe­ri­ence this tran­si­tion ear­li­er or lat­er in life. Menopause can be de­fined as the end of men­stru­a­tion. Usu­al­ly, it is di­ag­nosed af­ter about one year with­out a pe­ri­od.

Hav­ing to change the lo­ca­tion of a large-scale, all-in­clu­sive Car­ni­val event is no small task, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing a sea­son when large, sought-af­ter venues are booked quick­ly and of­ten months be­fore­hand.

As a graph­ic de­sign­er by train­ing, she has built a sol­id, 15-year ca­reer in graph­ic de­sign and al­so ex­pand­ed her cre­ativ­i­ty or­gan­i­cal­ly in­to fash­ion and cos­tume de­sign, where she has spent the last decade bring­ing char­ac­ters and con­cepts to life. Win­ches­ter is al­so a wife and moth­er of two, roles that, like her work, de­mand her en­er­gy, de­vot­ed pres­ence and con­stant care. A lover of colour, tex­ture and trav­el, her cre­ative jour­ney places vi­brance and evo­lu­tion at the core, and she has re­cent­ly tak­en her tal­ents in­to a new field with the cre­ation of her self-care jour­nal, Root­ed.

Gilberte Farah O’Sul­li­van (22/12/1971–25/1 2026) was a Trinidad-born po­et, ed­u­cat­ed in Trinidad, the UK, and the US, with an MFA in Cre­ative Fic­tion from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies. Her work was pub­lished across the Caribbean, North Amer­i­ca, the UK and Aus­tralia. On Jan­u­ary 25, 2026, she died of a stroke in Brighton, sur­round­ed by her three chil­dren, Rhi­an­non (22), Sinead (Max) (19) and Conor (15). This trib­ute is of­fered by her col­leagues, writ­ers and po­ets, in memo­r­i­al.

For many women, painful pe­ri­ods have been con­sid­ered a nor­mal part of life. Young girls are of­ten told to “bear with it,” while old­er women silent­ly tol­er­ate dis­com­fort month af­ter month. But as a gy­nae­col­o­gist, I want to make one thing very clear: se­vere or dis­abling pe­ri­od pain is not nor­mal and should nev­er be ig­nored.

Colour My Fan­ta­sy J’Ou­vert band, which be­gan in 2012, con­tin­ues to build on its lega­cy of cul­tur­al re­vival and tra­di­tion­al Car­ni­val ex­pres­sion, ac­cord­ing to band spokesman Varoun Har­rimun­gal.

At 33, Naki­ta Hy­atali stands as one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s most ver­sa­tile cre­atives, with a ca­reer span­ning fash­ion de­sign, car­ni­val pro­duc­tion, and cre­ative di­rec­tion. Her jour­ney has been shaped by pa­tience, ed­u­ca­tion, and hands-on ex­pe­ri­ence, a path she de­scribes as de­lib­er­ate rather than rushed.

When it comes to her craft, Karene As­che knows where her strengths lie, and she leaves no room for weak­ness­es.