KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Solange Govia is most­ly known for her car­ni­val cos­tume de­signs, which come to life in the bands Harts, Tribe, and The Lost Tribe. The pop­u­lar de­sign­er, who was re­cent­ly fea­tured by BET on­line, is ac­tu­al­ly the op­er­a­tions man­ag­er and cre­ative lead of Harts.

“My job is re­al­ly about build­ing and man­ag­ing re­la­tion­ships with all our stake­hold­ers. Man­ag­ing the com­mit­tee, mar­ket­ing, cus­tomer ser­vice, strate­gic plan­ning, and cos­tume pro­duc­tion are just a few of the things that I do. It’s re­al­ly every­thing and any­thing need­ed,” she said.

Govia, who is mark­ing 15 years as a de­sign­er, is al­so charged with en­sur­ing the de­sign process of Harts runs smooth­ly.

“That en­tails com­ing up with the theme for the band. Al­so, en­gag­ing and li­ais­ing with each de­sign­er, meet­ing with them, and guid­ing them along their de­sign process.” In 2008, Govia start­ed work­ing with Tribe right out of Ry­er­son Uni­ver­si­ty, Cana­da, af­ter ob­tain­ing a Bach­e­lor of Com­merce. “I want­ed some time be­fore I looked for a cor­po­rate job,” she ex­plained.

“Dean’s (Ackin) broth­er said, ‘Come and work in the mas camp for a lit­tle time while you’re look­ing for a job.’ Here I am 17 years lat­er.” At the Tribe Mas Camp, she was trained in lo­gis­tics and op­er­a­tions be­fore she moved in­to de­sign­ing. As a child, she played amongst her moth­er’s Pe­ter Min­shall cos­tumes in the liv­ing room. Her fa­ther was a close friend of the pro­lif­ic mas man. While the cre­ative gene was al­ways there, Govia did not know how to draw.

“I came from a fam­i­ly of artists. My moth­er, Ju­dith Shaw, is an artist; my aunt is Irene Co­zi­er, who teach­es at Holy Name; my un­cle is Christo­pher Co­zi­er, a world-renowned artist; and I have lots of cousins who paint and draw,” she said. “Imag­ine me be­ing cre­ative and not be­ing able to draw. When I was at uni­ver­si­ty, I start­ed do­ing a wire-bend­ing course, a jew­el­ry course, and a bead course be­cause I start­ed get­ting in­to jew­el­ry and mak­ing lit­tle ear­rings for my friends. That’s kind of how it start­ed. I found my out­let, which was not nec­es­sar­i­ly a draw­ing but some­thing else cre­ative.”

Fast for­ward to 2025, Govia has de­signed over 50 cos­tumes that have been worn by mas­quer­aders on the road for Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day. She’s al­so de­signed cos­tumes for Ex­o­dus in Ja­maica, as well as US celebri­ties Ashan­ti and Am­ber Rose. Miss World Trinidad and To­ba­go Ache Abra­hams made her de­but dur­ing the pageant’s open­ing cer­e­mo­ny in In­dia on 21 Feb­ru­ary 2025, in Govia’s Fan­cy Sailor de­sign.

Apart from BET on­line, Govia has been fea­tured in oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al pub­li­ca­tions in the past, like The Guardian. “It’s been weird be­cause I am not some­body who loves to talk about them­selves,” she said. “I like my work to speak for it­self, but the aim is to let the world know what we have to of­fer here in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

With her holis­tic ap­proach to the op­er­a­tions from the de­sign­er and op­er­a­tions per­spec­tives, Govia is fo­cus­ing on en­sur­ing a mem­o­rable ex­pe­ri­ence with Harts 2025. The band’s theme is Gem­stone Dream, with 12 sec­tions on the road.

“We are ex­cit­ed and ready. Harts dis­tri­b­u­tion is start­ing on Sun­day (to­day) at the Queen’s Park Oval. We are front­load­ing, which is get­ting out as many cos­tumes in the cus­tomers’ hands ear­ly in the week. The sys­tem is a very smooth process; mas­quer­aders will be in and out in 15 min­utes max.” Govia is al­so in full prepa­ra­tion mode for the road on Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day. “We’ll be back in the Queen’s Park Oval this year,” she said.

“We’re in­tro­duc­ing a café cart with grab-and-go pas­tries and espres­so shots. There will be the Harts Shot Bar­rels and Boozy Snow­cones. We def­i­nite­ly want to give our loy­al mas­quer­aders a great ex­pe­ri­ence.” An­nu­al­ly, Govia, who has se­vere anx­i­ety, thinks about call­ing it a day. “But I’m here again! It’s a busi­ness where you al­ways have to de­liv­er,” she said. “What push­es me through it all is my tribe, my peo­ple, my sup­port sys­tem, the women that sup­port my de­signs every sin­gle year. I have been very priv­i­leged to have a very loy­al base in all bands—Harts, Tribe, The Lost Tribe.”

For 2025, she is al­so col­lab­o­rat­ing with Brown Sug­ar Babe, a pop­u­lar lux­u­ry beau­ty fra­grance com­pa­ny whose CEO, Maekae­da Gib­bons, is Trinida­di­an.