BO­BIE-LEE DIXON

bo­bie-lee.dixon@guardian.co.tt

T&T’s lat­est de­sign­er to make an im­pact on Amer­i­can re­al­i­ty fash­ion de­sign se­ries Project Run­way, Ayana Ife, is now off to Italy to take up her place at the Mi­lano Fash­ion In­sti­tute, where she will start her mas­ter’s de­gree.

Ife was ac­cept­ed in­to the pro­gramme pri­or to Project Run­way, but chose to sus­pend at­tend­ing in or­der to fo­cus on the op­por­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in the 16th sea­son of the re­al­i­ty TV pro­gramme, where she was the run­ner up to Ken­taro Kameya­ma.

Her Caribbean roots, cre­ativ­i­ty and stance to not com­pro­mise mod­esty in dress dues to her Mus­lim faith, were some main in­gre­di­ents that helped Ife, 28, stand out among the fi­nal four last Thurs­day at New York Fash­ion Week, where the top four dis­played their fi­nal col­lec­tions.

The de­sign­er’s mo­ment of glo­ry once again put her par­ents’ home­land T&T on the world map. Her suc­cess was rem­i­nis­cent of Anya Ay­oung-Chee’s win back on the show’s ninth sea­son, when as a T&T fore­run­ner Ay­oung-Chee made it clear she was Caribbean through her de­signs.

Ife al­so made his­to­ry as the first Is­lam­ic woman to make it to the fi­nals on the pop­u­lar re­al­i­ty tele­vi­sion brand. For­mer­ly, one oth­er Is­lam­ic woman had en­tered but did not make it to the fi­nals. It was her Is­lam­ic iden­ti­ty that en­thralled the me­dia dur­ing her time on the show, mak­ing her one of the more pop­u­lar en­trants.

Ife cred­it­ed her styl­ish dad and seam­stress mom for the in­voked tal­ent. She de­scribed her fa­ther Hakim Muhammed as quite the dap­per man who al­ways dressed to im­press and moth­er Ayana as the ‘go to’ seam­stress for tai­lor-made suits and cur­tains.

From tak­ing the scraps of her moth­er’s work to make doll wear, Ife grad­u­at­ed in years to mak­ing clothes for her school friends as a teen. She took a short sab­bat­i­cal from de­sign­ing to pur­sue nurs­ing, a de­sire of her par­ents, but her pas­sion kept call­ing. She even­tu­al­ly en­rolled at Mid­dle Ten­nessee State Uni­ver­si­ty, where she ob­tained a bach­e­lor’s de­gree in ap­par­el de­sign.

Ife is the niece of the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T’s Pro­gramme Leader and Se­nior In­struc­tor for the Caribbean Acad­e­my of Fash­ion and De­sign, San­dra Carr. Speak­ing to the T&T Guardian, Carr said she was hap­py her niece beat the odds and stayed true to her aes­thet­ics with­out com­pro­mise.

“Ayan­na has giv­en a voice and con­fi­dence to many Mus­lim women and es­pe­cial­ly young ones who think they have to com­pro­mise their val­ues to fit in,” Carr said.

On fash­ion be­com­ing in­te­gral in T&T’s eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, Carr said, “Fash­ion is not a new to T&T. Cit­i­zens are now pay­ing at­ten­tion to the val­ue of many lo­cal cre­atives that are giv­ing T&T in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion. We need more in­vest­ments from pri­vate sec­tor and in­di­vid­u­als to re­al­ly see the true po­ten­tial of our cre­ative young peo­ple.”

She said there are many grad­u­ates from UTT be­ing show­cased and ap­pre­ci­at­ed for their tal­ents and crafts in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. But she not­ed it was on­ly in sit­u­a­tions like these with Ife that lo­cals pay at­ten­tion.

“We do not show ap­pre­ci­a­tion enough for our lo­cal tal­ent un­til they get in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion,” Carr not­ed.