RIHANNA PUT BARBADOS ON THE MAP with her voice. Marvo White-Jessamy is on her way to putting the Barbados stamp on the fashion world with her designs.
The holder of a diploma in garment technology from the Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic has already sampled the big times and the feel of striding down a major fashion runway with an international audience applauding her work.
Last February her designs were shown at the Plitz New York City Fashion Week. Out of that came the opportunity to do “tryouts” in March/April among 100 designers for a place among ten finalists to be selected on the popular US reality show Project Runway. She reached the final 11 and is currently the reserve, in line for a chance to be in the final ten.
Even bigger things loom, though Marvo is not at liberty to discuss the latest pending international venture now under discussion. It is all a dream coming true for the 46-year-old designer groomed and enabled by the Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic. She is following in the footsteps of her grandmother and her mother who both made their livelihood from dressmaking.
“I always used to say I am going to be a needleworker,” said the Barbadian designer who started sewing at age 18 and often admired her mother transforming a piece of fabric into an attractive garment.
She takes her design inspiration from all she sees around her and when she comes awake at 2 a.m., disturbing her husband’s sleep, and reaches for the sketch pad, it is because her creative mind may have been pricked by a piece of architecture, a flower or something else that caught her eyes and fired her imagination during the day.
Faithful clients cultivated over 22 years still clamour for exclusive designs bearing her Olyvia Michellá label and she says: “It tells me that I am still working on me; that I am a work in progress and it drives me to come up with better designs.”
She also designs under the “Marie” label (named after her mother) for the more mature woman while “Waynne” is the men’s line.
Her ultimate goal is to open her own fashion house. She envisages her House Of Judah Couture carrying several different labels and spreading its wings far beyond Barbados.
“The only thing that gives me peace, solace and pleasure, is sewing,” White-Jessamy said.