Artistic points of view

Fashion designer Angella Wilkinson is draped in the Christmas spirit.

Two weeks after being tasked by Living to create a holiday wardrobe – with a caveat to steer clear of seasonal colour tropes – the garment-making creative beams in sweet satisfaction with her finished five-piece capsule collection.

These pieces are Wilkinson’s first-ever, hand-painted, art-motif womenswear separates and a collaborative undertaking with visual artist Tobean Walters.

She had long been an admirer of his landscape, still-life and portraiture artwork set up along Cassava Piece Road, while transporting her daughter Soraya to Immaculate Conception High School.

Along one of her weekday commutes last month, a light-bulb moment sparked!

“After I got the call from The Gleaner and a challenge to do a non-traditional collection, I had some fabulous fabrics that I thought would make a good collection. I had silk, brocades, satin fabrics, and prints, but then I didn’t want to use the obvious reds and greens,” Wilkinson explains of the starting point. Zeroing in on white cottons as the garment of choice, she recounts, “I woke up one morning with an idea to paint a poinsettia onto the fabric, and that’s when I stopped by Tobean and asked if he was interested in doing it.”

Fortuitously, the two hit it off.

With her conceptual poinsettia dress made a gratifying reality, Wilkinson quickly re-engaged Walters to execute her fast-emerging storyboard of ideas. Post-Hurricane Melissa’s destruction out west, the fashion designer sought inspiration around the theme of resilience.

“After I put the first dress together, one painting led to another. I asked him to paint Holland Bamboo in St Elizabeth. It’s such a beautiful space for people who travel to that side of the island. Bamboo for me represents the resilience of our people. You bend, but you don’t break,” she tells Living.

“The other pieces came to me after. I thought about the hummingbird, the national bird; a butterfly, as it represents metamorphosis from a caterpillar; and lignum vitae, as it is [a] strong wood.”

Five patterned designs were completed with diligent brush strokes in six days by the artist.

For Walters, the newfound creative partnership was a learning curve.

He recalls Wilkinson’s politeness and patience as the reasons that prompted him to accept the assignment. “This was my first time painting on a dress, and it was a wonderful experience,” the 41-year-old Cassava Piece resident informs. “I used acrylic paints on the cotton. The sleeved dress with the lignum vitae designs took me two days. The others took me a day. I worked from morning to night to overlap time as we had a short time span.”

A fixture in the Kingston 8 environs, Walters first plied his captivating art outside Discount Centre and Pharmacy in Manor Park before relocating to his present location adjacent to the Constant Spring Police Station.

Meanwhile, 14 floors up in The Jamaica Pegasus hotel, Wilkinson is toting plastic-covered garments on clothes hangers down the guest floor hallway. Shoot day for her collection arrived last Monday.

Inside Room 402, she’s unpacked and is ironing wrinkles from the outfits in final preparation. As go-to local make-up master Paul March puts his signature hands to work on SAINT International model Shanice Thompson, the designer reflects on days past.

“I remember as a teenager, I could not leave the fabric store in downtown Kingston on Harbour Street. I would go there with my friend Cecilia Dallas, who was a seamstress. We went frequently, and I was always buying fabric. She made an outfit for me every week to go out.”

Then hotspot Epiphany in New Kingston held sway on her social calendar in the 1990s.

“Every Thursday was Epiphany night, and every week was a new outfit,” Wilkinson remembers with a toothy smile. “Let me tell you something, when I used to go, you see how dark I am and them days a browning a do it, but guess what? When I walked in, I owned the space.”

Most curiously, though, fashion design did not factor at all into her academic or professional pursuits at the time.

“As the years went by, I did different things. I went to school for nursing, but did not finish. I went to Excelsior to study business administration, but didn’t complete it. Then, I did a course in cosmetology and started my own business,” she recounts.

She transitioned to retail, buying clothes overseas for resale locally. “I got bored because I could not find pieces to stand up to me, and everybody had the same things. One day, I said to myself, ‘Just start making clothes’, and I started with knitwear as it was so easy to work with. The first place I sold my stuff was at Market on the Lawn on West Kings House Road 15 years ago. The reception was excellent, and I gained a lot of clients from that event, and things just propelled from there.”

Shifting from knitwear to textured fabrics, Wilkinson attended the Edna Manley College for the Visual and Performing Arts to learn the fundamentals of pattern-cutting. Soon thereafter, she established her womenswear brand Safidah, named by combining the names of her two eldest daughters: Safiya and Saidah. The designer is mom to four girls whose ages span from 16 to 23. Between them, the brand’s namesake offspring are currently attending university in Texas, while the younger two, Samara and Soraya, are enrolled in sixth form at St Andrew High School for Girls and fifth form at Immaculate, respectively.

Safidah, according to its creative lead, is for the sophisticated woman. “It’s for the woman who wants to look fabulous every day. I cater to that type of woman. I go for timeless pieces; I am not too much into what is trending because I want you to wear your pieces year in, year out,” she details of the credo that drives her business, which is home-based and appointment-only booking.

Wilkinson credits the ongoing success of her design enterprise, which launched in 2010, to two women.

“A very good friend of mine who still works with me, Valerie Bernard, is an excellent tailor and seamstress. Most of what I know is from Valerie. Also, Michelle Small is a seamstress who has worked with me for 15 years, and I am so appreciative of her, so it’s really a team effort to have Safidah where it is now.”

As for what’s on the horizon, the 54-year-old reveals that the five-piece collection curated for the Living assignment ignited her inner creative. Plans are now afoot for an expansive womenswear collection.

“I am going to work on one that should be coming out in Easter, inspired by this shoot. It will be fashion meets art, so most of the pieces will feature hand-painted artwork and no piece will be alike,” she explained.

There are also plans for a take-two expansion of the Safidah brand abroad.

“I am trying to go on the international market for next year with this collection. I want to do a retail store somewhere in the United States, but I’m not sure where yet. I had a store in Snellville in Atlanta, for two years, but I guess the location was bad. I want to rebrand the line and see where it goes from there.”

No matter what the future holds, the designer is immensely proud of the road she’s travelled.

“I have evolved. Fifteen years ago, I was not doing gowns. I am doing wedding dresses now. If you are coming from making just little knit dresses to making gowns and bridal wear, that’s evolving.”

lifestyle@gleanerjm.com

CREDITS

Shot on location at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel.

Photographed by Antoine Lodge.

Make-up on SAINT International model Shanice Thompson by Paul March.

Creative Director: Omar Tomlinson

Our thanks to Jamaica Pegasus Sales and Reservations Manager Maurice Bryan for his hospitality.

Check out The Sunday Gleaner Lifestyle on December 14 for the reveal of Angella Wilkinson’s capsule collection.