Paula Lindo – Our histories, stories, present, future.

The launch of The Purple Label – Cocktail Edition for AFROFUNKK by designer Charlene Sheppard-Duncan at The Shop at the Normandie Hotel on November 27 drew a crowd of admirers and local designers, including Yoko Fung and Christopher Nathan.

The collection featured an eclectic mix of 1930s inspired pieces, including high-waisted cullotes, zoot suit-styled pants suits, pill-box hats with fascinators and brightly patterned long skirts. The details of the outfits, like pocket squares, lace embellishments and gloves, as well as socks with stiletto heels and oversized top hats for the men, also added to the glamour of the collection.
Sheppard-Duncan said even though she wasn’t born in that era, she feels like she’s stuck there. “There’s something about the 1930s and 1940s I like, and I add a little twist of today. My inspiration comes from a lot of things, like I’m inspired by Nina Simone and that type of music so it brings on this type of look. I listen to a lot of genres of music but I mostly listen to blues.”
She credits local fashion designer Yoko Fung with inspiring her to become a designer. “I saw Yoko riding her bike for the first time when I was 10 years old, and I became a designer because I saw her and liked her style, and that’s what made me decide to do this. I was nervous when I heard she was coming. I was like oh my god, I have to go home, I have to look for the best thing. I got really nervous but she loved the show.”
Sheppard-Duncan said the fabrics for the line were sourced directly from indigenous sources, which the AFROFUNKK brand is known for. Some were hand-painted and printed in India, while others were African prints picked up by Sheppard-Duncan during her travels around the world. “I mostly deal with tribes from all over the world, including India, Thailand and Kenya, and that’s my favourite tribe, the Masai tribe.”
She said she made a commitment to having child-free labour associated with the AFROFUNKK brand. “Most of the fabrics are done in India, through block printing and I work with this little man in India, no kids work in his shop. I made it my duty when I was researching places where I wanted to work, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t encouraging child labour, or anything like that, so there is no kids working where I work.”
“I have to go to the borderlands of India and of Pakistan to find the tribal prints from some tribes that live over there. Some places that I go I have to be fully covered, but they know I’m not from there and they look at me like, what are you really doing here, what do you want? The wars and stuff don’t bother me, I just go, it doesn’t affect me, because if I think about that then I wouldn’t do anything. You’ve got to die someday and I’d be happy if I died doing what I love, so it doesn’t matter to me.”
Sheppard-Duncan said she decided to launch the collection in T&T because she was born in Trinidad but was raised in the United States. Sheppard-Duncan said she wanted to introduce her style to Trinidadians “because I think they just look one way, and I’m not trying to diss them or anything like that, I just think they are afraid of taking a chance, and the first thing they think about is what is society going to say? Well I don’t care about society, and what society thinks. I think if it makes me feel good, I’m just going to do it.”
The line, along with the “The Sykadellic Shack” collection, featuring Interior Design and ‘Funkky’ Home Accessories by AFROFUNKK, can be found at The Shop, Normandie Hotel, Port of Spain.