HER?STYLE has already found favour with the career woman, but people viewing designer Karen Brathwaite’s new Shilishai line at this year’s Barbados Manufacturer’s Exhibition, BMEX, loved the fusion of fabrics, textures and techniques she employed in a range of new styles, suggesting her designs do have wider appeal.
According to the Guyanese-born designer who has made Barbados her home, the response to Shilishai was “great.
“People loved it,” she told EASY Magazine.
“When you look at it, it is basically jumping outside the box and it is really a mixture of fabrics, yet you have colour coordination.”
Just as her own mother first recognized the designer in her four-year-old daughter, Karen spotted the early design potential in her four-year-old Shilishai, after whom she named the new line and who has been creating exciting child-like pieces from bits of fabric salvaged from her mother’s scrap bag.
Karen marvels at the way her daughter fuses colours in her youthful innocence: “She would go into the scrap bag and pick up scraps and stitch them together.
“It was really fascinating to see how she mixed the colours.” And when Karen checked the colour chart, she was often surprised that the colours did work.
Karen herself started making dresses as a little girl in her home in Guyana and her mother made it known that her daughter was a promising dressmaker.
As she grew and developed her skill, word soon spread about Karen’s ability and a small clientele began to draw on her skill.
“When I came to Barbados, I realised I can still use this skill because trying to get jobs, it was harder for me coming from outside to fit in, so I used my skill and it is working for me”, Karen said.
She exhibited her first line under the label “Kosmic Vibe” at a BMEX show and has over the past four years gained exposure in high-profile shows such as the Barbados Amateur Model Search, the Mother & Daughter Pageant, various fashion shows, and the Miss Barbados World show.
Still, she maintains that “Kosmic Vibe is still a baby working its way in terms of getting its branding established”.
She has been boosted in this regard by the Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme, the Barbados Youth Business Trust and the Barbados Investment and Development Corporation.
Aware that she has not had formal design training and is completely self-taught, this designer has from time to time sought guidance from a few experienced designers.
“I would ask questions and get guidance from them, and I have never been too shy to ask for asistance when I had difficult cuts.
“My line is basically for the woman who wants to look different. Women love to look different and they want to feel special.”
Karen considers Barbadian women to be very fashion-conscious and like their Caribbean sisters, they “love to dress”.
Against the region’s tapestry of fashion designed by very creative people, Karen views Caribbean women as “very artistic”, whose clothing “is like costumes and wearable art”.
She designs for men as well.
She explains “the beauty about my pieces is that they are not the normal, everyday wear. It is pieces you wear to special functions like weddings, graduations, even funerals”.
She loves working with natural fibres though there are customers who request synthetics and whom she accommodates.
With her elegantly casual pieces, it is easy to dress pieces up or down – and given the current economic climate, she advises women to invest in a wardrobe with “multiple uses”.
This designer is inspired by nature. Her tie-dye, batik and fabric painting reflect the beauty and colours of nature.
“I get most of my inspiration from nature. When I decide to do a line, I look at nature – inspiration is so vast if you look at birds, the sea, so much to work with. Colour is what basically catches me.
“I love changing the fabric, playing around with colours, dabbing my hand in dyes. People just see tie-dye for T-shirts and beach wraps, but I showed them you can make a sophisticated outfit for a sophisticated woman. You can get a formal outfit out of tie dye.”
Karen is also showing her clients how to accessorise, using the handbags she creates from burlap and leatherette graced by colourful wire designs created through her wire-bending skill, or the macrame she does so well.
She says after commissioning an outfit, many clients find themselves without the appropriate accessories and do not want to be bothered going shopping for them. They then ask her to make a complementary necklace, anklet, bracelets, even hairpieces.
Karen’s clients are behind her – they want her to put her work on the runway in a personal fashion show and, she admits “that’s what I would love to do for the future”.
