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Fashion TT in association with the University of Trinidad and Tobago expects to launch a local garment production facility by the end of September 2017.

T&T will soon be the home of a local garment production facility. The implementation of this facility is part of a national strategic plan for the fashion industry which was completed in 2015.

Fashion TT’s General Manager, Lisa-Marie Daniel, said the facility will provide local designers with the labour they need to produce their designs to national and international standards. “Based on our research, manufacturing is a major bottleneck right now to retail distribution and to widespread export, because that’s the reason why our designers cannot distribute properly and make the sort of income that they are capable of making.” She said while there are small production facilities present in T&T, this one will be implemented by government on a larger scale to serve the wider designer community. Daniel said she has heard there were production facilities in T&T in the 1970s and 1980s, but if they were still present there would not presently be a bottleneck in the manufacturing sector of the fashion industry.
Daniel said the production facility is meant to be self-sustaining and self-funding after a period of three years, and therefore a business model is being prepared in order for this to happen. To this end, a request for proposals to prepare the business was sent out and Raymond Wong was selected as the consultant for the project. Wong is an adjunct Professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and studied Industrial Design at the Pratt Institute in New York. As the co-owner of a couture brand, he has production facilities in China and New York and is familiar with their implementation. Daniel said while Fashion TT would have preferred to choose one of the applicants from T&T, Wong’s qualifications and overall experience meant that he came out on top in the scoring process.
She said there have been several consultations with stakeholders in the fashion industry about the business plan, the second draft of which was presented to the stakeholders on November 18 this year. Based on the feedback to the second draft, Wong is now compiling the final business model for the implementation of the production facility.

In order to allay the usual concerns of unfamiliarity with T&T’s culture which arise when foreign consultants are brought in, Daniel said Wong came to T&T several times to host workshops, interact with designers and see the various levels of development they were at.

“He came to discuss with the stakeholders what is required, to gauge what the facility looks like, what type of equipment we have, what the local climate has and what our issues are, essentially.”

Daniel said local designers could be assured that the facility would produce items of the same quality they are accustomed to making presently, and which would also be acceptable to worldwide distributors. “The T&T Bureau of Standards produced a document in 2013 which basically speaks to garment production standards on a national and a global scale and these types of standards will definitely be used in the facility to ensure that top quality is produced.” She said UTT will be supplying to outfit the facility. In addition, the production facility will be providing training to the persons who will be working there. Daniel said the salaries to be paid to the employees will be based on competitive market rates and the working hours will be standard. “Working conditions will be up to global standards in terms of floor layout and seating arrangements. All employees will be functionally uniformed to perform their respective functions and to ensure that injuries are prevented.”
Daniel said since the facility is being built to eventually become self-sustainable, it should survive the fallout that usually happens when governments change in T&T. “The strategic plan will continue to run over the next five-year period, so there should be no uncertainty in terms of the direction we’re going, so we’ll be able to basically build a good industry that can really contribute to the GDP of T&T.” She said this falls under Fashion TT’s mandate to stimulate business development and export activity of the fashion industry. She said the company wants to ensure that “we can help local designers push their business on a wider scale so they become known on a wider scale, not only locally but globally. As well, we’re trying to put T&T on the map from a fashion industry perspective because we have a lot of skill and creativity here locally.”