Sean Nero

Rev­o­lu­tion­ary New York-based Trinidad-born fash­ion de­sign­er Don­na Dove is com­ing for Fash­ion Week T&T 3 (FWTT3). Her much-tout­ed wear­able art col­lec­tion will take the spot­light at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel, Port-of-Spain, on Sat­ur­day, at the event themed Cosquelle be­comes Cou­ture!... brand­ing our Caribbean Style and pre­sent­ing it to the world. FWTT3 pre­miered at Pi­geon Point, To­ba­go, last Sun­day and Mon­day. It was the first time in the three-year cy­cle that shows were staged in the sis­ter isle. The fash­ion fes­ti­val was sched­uled to re­sume in Trinidad last night at the Hy­att Re­gency and will run un­til Sun­day.

Dove's col­lec­tions have been fea­tured at Guyana Fash­ion Week­end, Trinidad Fash­ion Week­end, The Black De­sign­er show­case at The Mu­se­um of New York, and the Ja­maican Mus­tard Seed Ben­e­fit Fash­ion Show at the New York Hilton. She said she's im­pressed with FWTT, cit­ing that T&T had fash­ion for­ward peo­ple. "I came down to T&T and was blown away by the free­dom of style from the de­sign­ers," she said. "T&T is for me what peo­ple in T&T think New York is for them. "I can sell my clothes easy and in greater vol­umes in T&T than in the US," she said, dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view from her stu­dio in Harlem.

In the Unit­ed States, the ma­jor­i­ty of her clients are based in her home dis­trict, and her cre­ations can be found in spe­cial­i­ty stores in New York State. She al­so does busi­ness in At­lanta. Ear­li­er in her ca­reer, Dove had re­tail stores at the Nor­mandie in St Ann's, Port-of-Spain, and in New York, but they weren't com­mer­cial­ly vi­able. While she has yet to em­brace the con­cept of e-com­merce, she said plans were on the way to ex­plore that on-line shop­ping op­tion to her busi­ness."It would be very for­ward think­ing of me to go that way," she said.

Dove's clients var­ied from Hol­ly­wood ac­tor Dan­ny Glover to cel­e­brat­ed mu­si­cian Fred­die Jack­son and, of course, the or­di­nary man and woman. Whether it's a cock­tail par­ty or red car­pet event, art ex­hi­bi­tion or mu­sic awards, Dove is con­fi­dent her pieces would get no­ticed for all the right rea­sons. The Caribbean had a bet­ter fash­ion di­rec­tion than New York when it comes to black de­sign­ers, Dove said. "I know that sounds crazy be­cause New York is the fash­ion cap­i­tal," she said. "As a black de­sign­er liv­ing in New York, I see a lot of de­sign­ers from the Caribbean whose work are shown in mag­a­zines and on tele­vi­sion. We don't get this kind of op­por­tu­ni­ty in New York."

Blessed with a keen and au­then­tic un­der­stand­ing of art, through her abil­i­ty to reach back to her ori­gins for in­spi­ra­tion and her syn­cretism of fash­ion de­sign and the fine arts, Dove saw her cre­ativ­i­ty as a di­vine process. Her note­wor­thy Sug­ar Cane Col­lec­tion en­com­pass­es the colour and syn­er­gy of the Caribbean, jux­ta­posed with the en­er­gy of New York. The re­sult is a styl­ish melange of men's shirts, fea­tur­ing orig­i­nal draw­ings and flow­ing cot­ton voile pieces cre­at­ed for the woman of dis­tinc­tion. She has ex­tend­ed her fash­ion line to in­clude orig­i­nal home fur­nish­ings, such as show­er cur­tains, pil­lows, lamp­shades and place mats–all bear­ing her sig­na­ture.