Island Couture Travel Video duration – 8.05 minutes. Simon: Peter FashionBoutique Bridgetown, Barbados Travel Video Look Caribbean Style Retail Therapy May I, guys? This stuff, this is nice really. I, definitely, I really want to know about, like, your inspiration. I mean the influences, it’s sort of Amerindian, Caribbean Indian We have a very extensive repeat clientele But you know, a lot of them, for instance, the girls we use, girls we work with, some of them, a lot. And we may shape their figures A lot of beigean(not clear) models? Beigean and models and you know, it is rarely that idea is Caribbean, born in the Caribbean and it is a twist, such a twist you know more to a European standard Tell me a little bit about your background Mike? How long have you been living in the Caribbean? How long have you been doing this? Simon Foster, celebrated Caribbean fashion designer I was born in Guyana, which is, you know, a Caribbean country. I left when I was very young, and went to England, lived in England, went to college in England, used to come to Barbados a lot with my parents on holiday and decided to stay. And what about you Peter? Peter Bowen, celebrated Caribbean fabric designer And I am Barbadian - I went to school like to Secondary. I met Simon when I was age fifteen, I started modeling for him and then joined the business, so it is 22 years now and it’s been quite exciting… So he is sort of like your protégé in a sense, may be? Yeah. In a way. But he had it already. You know, I’m sold. I ‘m definitely sold. But, tell me, I want to see how it happens. I want to see how this.. from For that we’ll have to take you out back. If you don’t mind it’s very messy and that’s where we work. But, of course I think in this business, in any kind of beauty or glamour business, the process is always horrific. The end-product is always beautiful. Let’s, let’s start from the beginning. You know, we started at the end, let’s go to the beginning. Alright So yes, as I was saying, this is where we work. Very messy, as you can see. Wow! This is really where it goes down, I see. Yea, and my, my sort of technique to the painting is very very primitive, very naïve… So you actually paint the fabric? Yeah. This is, this is where you guys make the pattern, the dye... Yeah, the pattern, they are patterns – I cut the fabric here……. Your sewing? And the sewing? That’s the machine to work on. And so, basically, we go from a white piece of chiffon to something as beautiful as that. So how long does it take? How long does the process take? They say the longest time in the painting is the drying. I can do this in 15 minutes. 9 – a 9 yard piece of fabric.. And I can get the colors, very very plain Even the plain colors, we paint. We don’t use the dyes because it doesn’t alter the feel of the fabric. Shown you the fabrics. So now, let me show you how the process starts. This is a white piece of silk chiffon. I use my very primitive bottle and spout and then we do something like that. (demonstrates). So it is just a matter of how I use my hands, and I can create and the wonderful thing about this spout is that I can adjust it to have very intense spouting, so I can do... So it can spray, it can have, like different effects? Yes, it can have different effects, or I can get even more intense.. Like that and create. Now the difficulty comes, when I create a piece of fabric and the client likes it and Simon gets the cut wrong, I have to do the whole process all over again. You have to make as close as possible to what you made in the beginning. Yeah, I have to make it as close as possible. But each fabric painted by me is an original piece. And then, there are also other techniques, where I can wet the fabric first, and that has a different effect. And it has a different effect when it dries. Everything is very very original. There we go. So it is a matter of just getting the color correct, getting the intensity, so it does not….. Alter the fabric at all… and then hopefully Simon will get the cut right, the first time. Nice, very nice, very interesting Thank you thank you Can I have a try? Yeah, do have a try! Can I be part of the process? Yeah, I sure hope so. So you just basically adjust and just.. Just adjust…you know, go with the flow, go with the flow of the fabric.. Do you ever, a lot of times, you probably mix colors to make up different other colors. Yeah I mix colors and that’s the thing .and I often have to remember what I had done before, like I said. I feel like an artiste Yeah. So it is just a matter of how you use your wrist and stuff like that. At other times, I can go like that, just crunch it and get a lot of different things. Nice, nice. Beautiful man, beautiful. Thank you. Alright cool. So I see a lot of…what are your influences? This dress is, it really shows – we have a heavy influence from shells, the details, the color – they are Caribbean clothes which emulate the Caribbean but their make and finish and everything is of European and North American standards. That’s what we aim for. One of the nice things is that it is so simple and that that, the accessories can be over the top. It looks great with over the top accessories, it looks great with nothing. Ok So I think next we’re going to need a great pair of shoes... And modern synthetic fabrics, they are fabulous. Because they do things, they don’t sweat and they breathe now, you know. So, if the fabric looks good for what we want, we’ll use it. But as Peter said, it’s basically silks, cottons and this is fabulous… It’s beautiful. It’s very nice Again, she may look – look who’s in it As far as I am concerned, they can wear at the beach, they can wear it night, they can wear it to bed if they wanted. And women, more and more, I think now, the climates don’t reflect what people wear now. It’s as if you can wear nothing and go in their kind of fabulous coats or whatever. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world now. I think it’s a very old idea that “oh you can only wear that dress...” so its’ changed, the whole concept of fashion has changed and what people wear when. Well its great, that’s a great phase, actually, we create with the use of the beautiful theme – we create a kind of a Caribbean dream.