Designer Shoma shifts to a solo label and new collection

KIERAN KHAN

Shoma Persad has found her passion and is doubling down on it. Her new fashion label is a natural progression for the designer and creative director. In the midst of a challenging year, Persad trusted in the timing of new beginnings, and confidently began to walk a new path: launching an eponymous label with Tropical Masquerade: a new collection of stunning resort wear that’s focused on reflecting our Caribbean beauty, aimed squarely at an international market.

"This journey just happened for me. It was a natural process of something I loved: a passion to make beautiful things, to look beautiful and help people do the same. And with fashion I get to do all the things I love, including photography, styling and marketing. This is the space where my passions collide and to think it all started as a project a couple years ago,” the 35-year-old Ryerson University graduate pointed out.

That project was intended as a single collection line with her friend and long-time collaborator, Tobye Gill. It turned from a single idea to a full-time brand and business avenue for both. On a 2019 trip to Paris for Premiere Vision Paris – one of the most popular international fashion conventions in the world – Persad noted that as a marketing professional, she realised the need to tie the fashion element closer together with the brand’s identity and story, which at the time was a creative partnership.

“We had had a great run and it was a learning curve for me since I never had a formal education in fashion. It became tougher for us to stay together as we both grew creatively and as individuals too, so this was the next logical step for me,” she said.

“Shoma The Label is a rebirth and aligns closer with what I wanted to do originally. I’m in a much better place to launch a fashion brand today and tie it together with the experience in marketing too,” she added. This collection represents a labour of love for the designer. With just a nine-month window to execute according to her plans, she recognised that collaboration would be key.

“I’m a one-woman show in the marketing and design aspects but I do have a great production team. For this campaign, however, I decided to engage local specialists in their fields to collaborate with them.” The design aesthetics are her ideas, but Persad leaned into working with print illustrator James Hackett to collaborate on unique prints to represent the flora and fauna of TT and the Caribbean. Her label also collaborated with Sanian Lewis of Sanianitos for hand-painted accessories to complement the collection.

“Anyone can go into a store and buy a print of a fabric to create a design with, but in an effort to bring the Shoma The Label brand into its own space and raise the exclusivity of the experience, we really wanted our own fabric to begin this Caribbean journey. We put great effort into bringing these signature pieces alive so that they are truly one of a kind not just in structure and design elements, but also in the very print of the fabric as well.”

Tropical Masquerade plays homage in name to her fashion education but also pivots in design to showcase a new maturity for Persad’s brand.

“We wanted to change the idea of what resort wear could be. We often think of it as simply bikinis and cover ups – but it is and can be so much more than that. We are the Caribbean and we have to tell the world what that means from a fashion point of view. I wanted to elevate the idea beyond the beach wear to show sides of resort wear that are more glamorous and more fashionable too.”

Fashion, like every other facet of modern life has been impacted by the public health regulations as a result of the global pandemic. In some way, this collection represents a well-timed adaptation too.

“The pieces are very versatile and though they are unique in their own way, they’re more of an investment that can be mixed and matched in either a casual or a more formal way. For instance, we have had a lot of requests for our pieces for the smaller micro-weddings being held this year, so with the nature of interaction and events changing, so too is the nature of fashion.”

Production of the collection is done by order to reduce wastage via the off-the-rack approach and allows for greater customisation of the pieces to truly fit the needs of the client.

The names of the pieces evoke a hazy Sunday morning drive through parts of Trinidad and Tobago. Ranging from the colourful Manzanilla Breeze maxi dress to the cropped sand-coloured Castara top, the structure of several include ruffles to represent waves and waterfalls across the islands.

“I want people to see themselves in these pieces and be proud to be from the Caribbean wearing a Caribbean brand. I also did a lot of research into what people wore here in the 1940s and 1950s. Fashion is after all, as they say, art in motion – that is what I was going for!”

Persad is also eagerly laying the groundwork for an altruistic side to her fashion career and has decided to re-purpose the fabrics to streamline sustainable usage within Shoma The Label’s production operations.

A charitable initiative by Shoma The Label, called Tropical Sanctuary, aims to provide a unique opportunity for TT’s emerging and established designers to give back to the communities that inspire the mobility of our local creative sector. With signature fabric created by the fashion house, designers from across the island will have an opportunity to create garments for children to donate to those most vulnerable in society.

“The prints no longer lined up with the label’s current creative direction, so I decided to donate it to local up-and-coming as well as established designers on one condition: that it be used to provide clothing for our underprivileged children. Tropical Sanctuary allows designers to create simple silhouettes and designs and even select the children’s homes they wish to donate the designs to and that is currently underway.”

In addition to the brand’s own online shopping platform which includes world-wide flat rate shipping, Shoma The Label has also recently signed an international agreement with PAPAIŸO, an online boutique for high-end Caribbean brands.

“Mika Elline created this fantastic platform which will now carry our pieces from 2021, along with about five other Caribbean designers. It’s styled like a Modus Operandi and other such platforms but it is just one step in the direction of our overall vision to become a globally-available and recognised brand.”

While European, US and other global fashion houses and designers have often looked to the Caribbean for inspiration, Shoma and her team are aiming to flip that story on its head.

"It’s time to tell our stories to audiences that want to hear about the Caribbean and to ‘wear’ the Caribbean – but this time from us as Caribbean people ourselves. It’s time for us to tell our stories the way we want them told.”

Credits:

Creative director and designer: Shoma Persad

Brand: Shoma The Label

Photographers: Marlon James, Elon Thomas and Josiah Persad

Stylists: Emma Foster-Hiscock and Cyan Gomes

Makeup and hair: Paulla De Souza

Models: Shalisha Stewart and Fariel Ali Khan

Jewellery: We Dream In Color/Jade Gedeon & Sanianitos/Sanian Lewis