The NCC’s Car­ni­val is Fash­ion Too took place at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah on Feb­ru­ary 9, trans­form­ing the his­toric venue in­to a stage where fash­ion met fes­tiv­i­ty. The event aimed to so­lid­i­fy lo­cal fash­ion as an in­te­gral part of Car­ni­val, show­cas­ing de­sign­ers’ artistry while ho­n­our­ing the fes­ti­val’s cul­tur­al ta­pes­try.

Cre­ative di­rec­tor Richard Young ex­plained, “Our sto­ry­telling ex­pres­sive­ness mer­chan­dised the looks of nine lo­cal de­sign­ers, in­ter-spliced with Car­ni­val char­ac­ters who re­flect el­e­ments of our col­lec­tive style ex­pe­ri­ence.”

De­sign­ers in­clud­ed Pe­ter Elias (Cosquelle Be­comes Cou­ture), Charu Lochan Dass (San­ti­man­i­tay), Mark East­man (Irin Ajo), Heather Jones (Folk Lure), Zadd & East­man (Life of The Par­ty), Har­vey Robert­son (Neo Sagaboy), Do­minique La Roche (Bare Good Vibes), Lisa Faye (Makin’ Style), and The Cloth (Clear de Way For Cul­ture).

Creative director Richard Young

Young de­scribed fash­ion as the “liv­ing, breath­ing heart­beat of Car­ni­val,” adding, “The cor­re­la­tion be­tween our lo­cal fash­ion, our re­splen­dent Caribbean aes­thet­ic, and our Car­ni­val cos­tum­ing is un­de­ni­able... I have pitched this con­ver­gent syn­er­gy of Car­ni­val and fash­ion for years, pro­claim­ing its in­dis­pens­abil­i­ty.”

He em­pha­sised that Trin­bag­o­ni­ans are “nat­u­ral­ly fash­ion­able” with an “ex­hi­bi­tion­is­tic DNA” that birthed Car­ni­val. “The need to be ex­pres­sive, demon­stra­tive, lib­er­at­ed, and cre­ative is all part of our por­tray­al of iden­ti­ty. Cos­tum­ing and fash­ion­ing ex­ist hand in hand. Our lo­cal fash­ion pays homage to the Car­ni­val-style sea­son. It is our time to ‘make style,’ an ethos that al­lows us to be free in our ‘show­ing off’ aes­thet­ic.