I popped in to have a chat with designer Keneea Linton to talk about her line and get some insider information about our local fashion industry. I was a familiar face to her having had a short stint doing sales in the fashion industry

myself, so she welcomed me inside and poured out her thoughts openly. I was quite shocked to learn that she has no formal training in fashion design or even sewing!

How did she get started?

This beautiful, vibrant, 20 something year old, one half of a twin started off by designing cheerleading costumes for her high school teams in Mandeville. She giggles as she remembers the days of altering articles of clothing bought for her by her parents and doing other “girly things” saying this is how she learned to take a part and reassemble different pieces. She continued to design pieces for dance troupes and dresses for pageants, individual pieces for friends and took orders from a friend’s, but never thought about going pro. She always thought she would end up doing law or marketing and considers herself a business person at heart.

So…yeah, how did she get started?

She started a marketing firm with a friend and was searching for designers to do a show for a local modeling agency when she decided to use her own pieces instead. She caught the eye of the agency CEO who suggested she consider a career as a fashion designer. It took her all of three days (mi think a lie she a tell) to put together a line for Caribbean Fashion Week 2006. This was a huge turning point in her career and describes CFW as a great platform for young designers, because of “the incredible experience of meeting other designers and receiving immense media coverage.” This is when she decided to go pro and get her business started. She went to HEART, the training institute, to hire local persons and went to Singer for machinery and the rest is cliché J

What challenges are there in our local fashion industry?

Keneea went on about the many ails of not having much support from the government or local stores. I’ve always heard that the government should do more to help our fashion industry, but I never really figured out for myself how they could help. Well Keneea wants better access to loans and machinery as she says it is too difficult and expensive to bring in industrial type machinery and so she settles on second hand or the old, outdated machinery available here. She compares our fashion industry with that of Barbados and Trinidad points to how involved and committed their Government is to their fashion industry and its success. There is also a need for skilled persons who pay better attention to detail and quality of work, and she really wishes there was a factory of these skilled persons where she could send her designs for them to be mass produced.

And the stores?

“They don’t want to buy your designs and put in their stores they want to take them on consignment. The problem with this is that if somebody comes in for something…say a black dress…the sales people will push other dresses that they have already paid for and therefore must sell, instead of your design. Other than that, we the local designers are selling unique, sometimes even handmade pieces of a higher quality and the stores are selling items mass produced in China, the competition is just too much.”

Speaking of competition, how is that locally?

Well the competition is more from the stores carrying cheaper items, that is where we designers face our competition. There isn’t any competition between designers per se, as no designer really advertises a lot. There is a love and respect for the art form and so supporters of the industry buy from all of us and are not necessarily tied to one designer.

How does she describe her design style?

“Very classy, clean-cut, trendy”

She currently makes party dresses, cocktail dresses, formal gowns, swimwear, tropical pieces to be marketed to the hotels and is eager to get started on her corporate wear line. Looking around her studio I noticed that she works a lot with silks and satins and is riding the current trend of the empire waist in fine style.

How does Keneea find the industry and the local market? She beams about her love for the industry and how much fun she is having. “It is great that Jamaica is not defined by seasons as with Northern industries as that would pose a challenge of pumping out new designs every season. We are not faced with that challenge thankfully and so we’re not faced with the task of making sure our pieces are sold before winter comes. The market is very foreign minded, everybody wants to wear “foreign clothes” and so right now I am aiming to go international with my designs and be that “foreign presence.” It would be great to sell my line abroad and boast “designs from Jamaica mon” Keneea says she has no regrets as everything has been a learning experience and advises young designers not ask “what can the industry do for me” but instead “what can I do for the industry” We have to bring the industry to where it ought to be ourselves and so must be prepared to put in the work.

My chat was great with the budding designer and I fell in love with her pieces. She is currently finishing up her degree at UWI Mona where she studies International Relations and Philosophy. You can find her at Suite 14, 38a Trafalgar Road Kingston Jamaica. Email keneealinton@gmail.com

Check out her line in the FOS Galleries, some of which are displayed in this site’s banner above.

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