Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Re­porter

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

As the say­ing so of­ten goes, “Car­ni­val is Woman”, and Car­ni­val Mon­day 2026 was cer­tain­ly no dif­fer­ent.

As thou­sands of women took to the streets of Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, on­look­ers—sober and in­tox­i­cat­ed—looked on in awe of the nat­ur­al and cre­ative beau­ty on dis­play.

In many groups of on­look­ers, es­pe­cial­ly the el­der­ly, de­bates about biki­nis, beads and fab­ric raged on.

For more than two decades, Irv­ing Mur­ray played Car­ni­val, end­ing his run when Lega­cy closed up shop.

He was less than im­pressed by the spec­ta­cle on dis­play at the South Quay Judg­ing Point.

Mur­ray longed to see a mas clos­er to the one he re­mem­bered as a mas­quer­ad­er.

“It was bet­ter be­fore, as far as I am con­cerned. Now, it is on­ly biki­ni. Mas now is biki­ni. We like Brazil.

“I know the days when mas used to be dif­fer­ent. When George Bai­ley played a mas called the Bible. When the mas came to town, all you saw was a big gate and all the mas­quer­aders be­hind. And when they opened the gate, the pharaoh sit­ting down with his son, and the whole crowd went wild. It eh have that again. All you see­ing now is a set of peo­ple and the more bare they get­ting, but what can we tell the youths and them?” he lament­ed.

His wife—sit­ting next to him, his daugh­ter, and grand­daugh­ter —agreed.

“Yes, be­cause I went to the Kings and Queens, and I found I was not see­ing the cre­ativ­i­ty again. That was once up­on a time. Mas has lost its cre­ativ­i­ty.

“You are sup­posed to up­hold your cul­ture. Peo­ple who were re­al­ly good wire ben­ders and things, like that, are kin­da lost. So it have noth­ing for them. You kind of cast them out,” she said.

For 39 years, Jem­ma Jor­dan has been the voice of Down­town Car­ni­val and Car­ni­val events like Di­manche Gras and Panora­ma.

Read­ing the back­ground in­for­ma­tion of the small­est to the largest of bands for decades, she knows things about mas most peo­ple do not.

She be­lieved, nat­u­ral­ly, de­sign­ers are cater­ing to the wish­es of mas­quer­aders—who seem to de­sire less cloth­ing.

“I know things have changed. Long ago, peo­ple were much more con­ser­v­a­tive. So, that you had a band­leader like George Bai­ley, Harold Salde­nah, Ir­win McWilliams, and they did a lot of cloth­ing, but I’ve heard the younger peo­ple say, Trinidad is too hot for all that cloth. So they have no prob­lem with beads and biki­nis,” she said.

At the very last minute, Cher­ry Cum­ber­batch played biki­ni mas with her friends in Mar­di Gras.

“I don’t have on so much clothes to­day, but I would have gone to the Kings and Queens com­pe­ti­tion, so there is a space for every­body in the Car­ni­val.

“But, to be hon­est, a lit­tle more fab­ric nev­er hurt any­body. But, at the end of the day, things change, and they evolve, and there is still that cul­tur­al space for the peo­ple who want to en­joy that (more fab­ric). I per­son­al­ly do a bit of both,” she said.

Neesa Bai­ley crossed the South Quay judg­ing point play­ing a mod­ern take of dol­ly mas with a group of around a dozen oth­er mas­quer­aders.

Her band was called Miss Dol­ly Sug­ar­cake.

Be­fore the band crossed, she de­liv­ered a spo­ken word piece about fem­i­nism based on re­la­tion­ship is­sues.

She be­lieved it was crit­i­cal for tra­di­tion­al el­e­ments of mas to be pre­served through mod­ernistic takes.

“I am a The­atre Arts Ma­jor at the De­part­ment of Cre­ative and Fes­ti­val Arts, and hon­est­ly, the evo­lu­tion of mas needs to hap­pen for it to be re­tained.

“So this (that I am play­ing) is an ex­am­ple of mas re­ten­tion be­cause this is not the tra­di­tion­al Baby­doll ….It’s Baby­doll, but it’s changed, so peo­ple can like it bet­ter, get in­to it, be­cause things just can’t stay the same for­ev­er, or it will just wean out with time,” she said.