From recycled fishing nets to innovative eco-friendly fabrics, Caribbean fashion is embracing sustainable development more than ever. At the CARIFESTA XV cultural festival in August 2025 in Barbados, a ground-breaking sustainable fashion show highlighted seven committed Caribbean designers, presenting creations that were as creative as they were eco-responsible.
These new-wave designers – from Trinidad and Tobago, Cuba, Belize, Panama, Antigua, Martinique and even the Caribbean diaspora in the USA – are breathing new life into the brand, proving that fashion and sustainability can go hand in hand with Caribbean identity and innovation.
Smart Swimsuits (USA) - Recyclable innovation for the oceans
American Aleksandra Fardanov, founder of Smart Swimsuits, offers swimwear at the cutting edge of eco-responsible innovation. Based in Miami, but present on the Caribbean catwalks during the CARIFESTA XV. The brand’s swimwear is made from recycled materials, helping to protect the oceans. Its exclusive technical fabric features an integrated SPF 35 that blocks harmful rays while leaving the skin tanned. This approach combines slow fashion and sustainable technology.
Alba Royo - Made in Women (Martinique) - From carnival to committed clothing
A committed stylist in Martinique, Alba Royo leads the “Made in Women” workshop for the D’Antilles & D’Ailleurs association at the CARIFESTA XV. It mobilizes the island’s women around an upcycling approach: recovering used fishing nets to make eco-responsible carnival costumes. A way of reconciling local creation, cultural transmission and environmental awareness.
Studio Perera (Belize) - Ethical luxury craftsmanship
Emilio Perera, founder of Studio Perera, advocates sustainable artisanal luxury in Belize. A former leatherworker turned designer, he uses only raw materials sourced locally: local leather, banana fibers, coconuts… Each piece is handmade in collaboration with Belizean artisans. In this way, Studio Perera reveals a sustainable and meaningful form of local fashion.
House of Argent (Antigua & Barbuda) - Recycled avant-garde
Antigua-born designer Garrett “Argent” Javan is a proponent of avant-garde, eco-friendly fashion. A graduate of Trinidad and Tobago and a star of Mission Catwalk, he creates bold conceptual pieces using recycled materials, reverse dyeing, visual effects and androgynous silhouettes. His House of Argent label embodies a decolonial and committed aesthetic.
Juan Carlos Jiménez Huerta (Cuba) - Craftsmanship and resilience
Cuban designer and ceramist Juan Carlos Jiménez Huerta fuses the plastic arts with fashion. His “Intimidad ofrendada” collection, designed during the pandemic, uses a variety of artisanal techniques: textile painting, macramé, weaving and recycled ceramic accessories. A native of Matanzas, he embodies fashion rooted in Cuban resilience and handmade craftsmanship.
Love For Upcycling (Panama) - Fashion as circular activism
Founded by Panamanian designer José Alexzander, the Love For Upcycling brand-movement promotes textile upcycling through competitions, workshops and eco-responsible collections. Its credo: to recycle used clothing to raise awareness of fast fashion. Its impact extends from Panama to Miami, as part of an international community.
The Cloth (Trinidad and Tobago) - Hand-woven Caribbean soul
Robert Young, founder of The Cloth, is a leading figure in sustainable Caribbean fashion. Since 1986, he has championed fashion rooted in local culture, using natural fabrics, artisanal dyes and handmade motifs. The company advocates the longevity of clothes and their affective value. “Grown and made in the Caribbean” sums up its commitment.
Caribbean fashion between roots and renewal
Whether recycling marine waste into festive outfits, perpetuating ancestral techniques or reinventing high-tech textiles, these seven Caribbean designers share a common conviction: fashion can – and must – be sustainable. Their success on the CARIFESTA XV stage illustrates the emergence of a shared regional vision, where island cultural identity is combined with environmental responsibility.
Inspired by their roots as much as by the urgency of climate change, they propose a fashion that tells a story – that of resilient islands facing the challenges of the world. Caribbean fashion that is ethical, poetic and committed, inventing today the dress codes of tomorrow.
As part of CARIFESTA XV, the “Big Ideas, Bold Voices” event brought together five major music business panels in Barbados. Over the course of a single day, speakers from Jamaica, the United States, Canada and St. Kitts shared their expertise to offer Caribbean artists and professionals concrete keys to development.
Panel 1 - Soca as a Genre in the Grammys and Membership Aspects
Speaker : Janette Becerra – Representative of the Recording Academy (Grammy Awards)
The first discussion highlighted a central issue: the recognition of soca at the Grammy Awards. Janette Becerra pointed out that, despite its international influence, soca does not yet have an official category in this prestigious ceremony. At CARIFESTA XV, she stressed the importance for Caribbean artists, producers and managers of join the Recording Academy to have a collective say in decision-making.
In her view, soca’s future at the Grammys depends less on aesthetic debate than on institutional mobilization. The more Caribbean professionals are members and active within the Academy, the more likely their musical genres – soca, calypso or chutney – will gain visibility and official recognition. This intervention at CARIFESTA XV launched the day on a clear note: unity and organization are essential if Caribbean music is to make headway in the world’s major forums.
Panel 2 - Global Export Production
Speakers: Stephen “Di Genius” McGregor (Jamaica, producer for Drake, Shakira, Sean Paul, Damian Marley…) and Rico Love (USA, songwriter for Beyoncé, Usher, Kelly Rowland, Nelly, etc.)
This panel opened a frank dialogue between two renowned producers on how to export Caribbean sounds. Stephen McGregor, a leading figure in dancehall and reggae fusion, shared his experience as a Jamaican working on the American and international scenes. His message was simple: authenticity is an asset and exporting does not mean renouncing one’s roots.
Rico Love insisted on another point: a hit is always based on universal emotions. Whether it’s a question of love, solitude or joy, the songs that stand out are those that express intimate feelings in an original way. He reminded us at CARIFESTA XV that the role of the producer is not to create an identity for the artist, but to reveal the greatness already present in him/here.
At CARIFESTA XV, the two speakers also discussed the rise of artificial intelligence in music production. Their position is clear: AI is a tool, never a threat. It can help us become more efficient, but it will never replace the human sensitivity that makes a work so powerful.
Panel 3 - Publishing and Global Access (K-pop, Eurovision, EDM)
Speakers : Kristen, Maria Brokberg (aka Mathia), Bruno Duque, Spencer Mussellam
This panel focused on music publishing and access to international markets. Speakers showed how Caribbean catalogs could find their place in universes as varied as K-pop, Eurovision or EDM.
They stressed the importance of structuring copyright and to build a catalog. This is what opens the door to global collaborations. The example of K-pop illustrated how an industry can add value to its composers by exporting titles on a massive scale across Asia and beyond. Eurovision, meanwhile, was presented as an exceptional showcase for introducing regional styles to a global audience. Finally, EDM was highlighted for its fluidity of collaboration Today, a Caribbean producer can co-sign a track with a European or Asian DJ in just a few clicks.
The central message: the Caribbean must invest in the publishing and legal organization of its works if it is to become a key player on these global stages.
Panel 4 - Label Management, A&R Management, Global Booking & Tour Management
Speakers : Ivan Berry (Canada/Saint-Kitts, manager, publisher and consultant), Jonathan Ramos (Live Nation, VP Global Touring), Max Gousse (A&R and manager, collaborator with Beyoncé, Usher, Saweetie)
This fourth panel explored the core of the artist’s business how to manage a career, a label, artistic development and touring.
- ✅ A&R and label management : Max Gousse emphasized the central role of A&R, capable of guiding an artist in the creation of a coherent catalog and ensuring long-term vision. Label management, on the other hand, structures the entire process, from production to promotion.
- ✅Booking and touring: Jonathan Ramos explained the difference between soft tickets (festivals, support acts, where the audience hasn’t come just to see you) and hard tickets (concerts where spectators pay to see YOU). For him, the true value of an artist is measured by his or her ability to sell “hard tickets”.
- ✅ Local strategy before global: Ivan Berry encouraged artists to build their credibility at home first, via local circuits (cafés, bars, churches, clubs), before aiming internationally.
- ✅Fans and digital: Everyone stressed the importance of real fan engagement and online content. An active fan, ready to buy a VIP ticket or a T-shirt, is worth more than thousands of passive followers.
Beyond the technical aspects, this panel made it clear that no artist can succeed alone. It’s the complementarity between labels, A&R, managers, agents and producers that creates lasting careers.
Panel 5 - Global Platforms for Distribution
Speakers : Kevin Barton (co-founder of the Departure Festival, ex-Universal, director) and Patrick Murphy (Program Director, Departure Festival, ex-Live Nation)
The final panel extended the debate beyond music to consider the place of Caribbean artists in a global cultural ecosystem. At CARIFESTA XV, Kevin Barton reminded us that music touches on all fields – cinema, video games, gastronomy, visual art – and that we must avoid being pigeonholed into a single artistic label.
Patrick Murphy concluded by stressing the importance of a complete profile: talent, discipline, digital presence and strategic collaborations. For him, an Instagram or TikTok account is now a way of life. Online CV. Programmers and labels don’t want to guess at an artist’s potential: they want to see concrete proof of his or her commitment and ability to federate a community.
The two speakers at CARIFESTA XV also reminded us that the human network remains essential. Great careers are built less on distributed business cards than on real relationships forged with peers at the same level, who then grow together towards success.
Bringing together high-level experts on topics as varied as publishing, exporting, production, management and distribution, CARIFESTA XV showed that the Caribbean has all the resources it needs to assert itself on the world stage. But the messages converged: this requires discipline, structuring, collaboration and commitment.
Whether it’s getting soca recognized at the Grammy Awards, exporting an authentic sound, building a solid catalog, selling out venues or taking advantage of digital platforms, the future of Caribbean artists will depend on their ability to combine creativity and strategy.
Despite a modest presence in terms of numbers, Martinique shone with the strength of its artistic and cultural offerings at CARIFESTA XV. Richès Karayib looks back at the commitment of the artists, the impact of their performances and the symbolic significance of a participation that reveals all the creative wealth of the island.
Artistic creation at CARIFESTA XV: three expressions, one territory
The band Tras La
The “Lanmè ka pran, lanmè ka ba” show by the group Tras La led by La Soso (Sonya Marc), transported the audience into a sensory fresco around the Caribbean Sea, a deeply symbolic and embodied show.
Composed of two tableaux, this show weaves a sensitive link between memory, historical drama and living celebration:
The first part, Lanmè ka pran – the sea that takes, pays tribute to the lives of those lost in the transatlantic crossing, as well as to figures such as journalist André Aliker and the victims of Chalvet, all linked to history and the sea.
The second part, Lanmè ka ba – the sea that gives, is rooted in transmission and vitality: fishing, the Yoles, love, the beach, popular festivals.
The choreographic staging combines water, bodies, drums and intimate stories, making the sea a central player in our collective memory.
For La Soso, this show makes perfect sense in Barbados, in a Caribbean linked by the sea, where it is becoming urgent to overcome linguistic and political barriers to reinforce a natural meeting between Caribbean people. This is the very spirit of CARIFESTA XV.
Boris Reine-Adélaïde
Boris Reine-Adélaïde a.k.a. Boris Percus, delivered a striking solo performance, fusing the traditional Martinican bèlè drum with an electronic sampler. Alone on stage, he creates live music that blends Afrobeat, Congolese rumba, drill, dancehall and Brazilian influences.
This powerful sonic journey, rooted in tradition but open to the world, sketches out a contemporary Martinique, in dialogue with the music scenes of Africa, Europe and Latin America. It’s a way of telling the island’s story in a different way, through rhythm, improvisation and technology, in perfect harmony with CARIFESTA XV.
The association: D’Antilles et d’Ailleurs
Finally, the association D’Antilles et d’Ailleurs made a strong impression with the Made in Women brand, carried by designer Alba.
In addition to an exhibition and sales stand at the festival, the team presented their creations in a highly acclaimed fashion show.
The pieces, made from recycled fishing nets, combine contemporary aesthetics, ecological commitment and territorial roots. Alba defends a strong vision of Caribbean fashion: conscious, circular, and connected to the social and environmental issues of everyday island life. This message found a particular echo in CARIFESTA XV.
Cultural diplomacy: political presence and regional cooperation
While the stage was taken by the artists, Martinique’s political representatives also played a key role. Marie-Ange Ravin and Dominique Pompée, representatives of the Collectivité Territoriale de Martinique, took part in strategic meetings, notably with Dr Shantal Munro-Knight, Minister of Culture in the Office of the Prime Minister of Barbados.
Objective: strengthen inter-regional cooperation in the cultural field, support artistic mobility and promote Caribbean integration. These exchanges were particularly valuable in the context of CARIFESTA XV.
A voice to be amplified in the Caribbean
A measured delegation, but one with meaning and vision. Through art, fashion, the stage and political commitment, Martinique has demonstrated its ability to engage in dialogue with the rest of the Caribbean, to offer a singular voice and to contribute to the creation of a common regional imaginary.
This participation in CARIFESTA XV highlights a fundamental issue: the need to strengthen not only cultural, but also economic, environmental and diplomatic bridges between the territories of the Greater Caribbean. With this in mind, active integration into regional frameworks such as CARICOM is becoming strategic to amplify collaborations, promote the free circulation of artists, goods and ideas, and collectively influence global issues. The future of our region will be built on these cross-fertilizations, on the circulation of ideas, creations, products and visions, as CARIFESTA XV reminded us.
Richès Karayib will continue his mission: to make these voices heard, to document these bridges, and to contribute to the mutual recognition of the peoples of the Greater Caribbean.
An essential Jamaican author
Opal Palmer Adisa is recognized as a major figure in Caribbean literature. A native of Kingston, she has led a transnational career, moving between Jamaica, the United States and the wider region. Professor and writer, Opal Palmer Adisa taught for over twenty years in California and helped found the Creative Writing Program, California College of the Arts. Returning to the Caribbean, she directed the Institute for Gender and Development Studies at the University of the West Indies, while publishing over twenty-five books.
Tracks such as It Begins with Tears, Painting Away Regrets or 4-Headed Womanare read as benchmarks in the exploration of identity, gender and historical heritage. Through her magazine Interviewing the Caribbeana, she has also created a space to give a voice to the region’s writers, artists and intellectuals.
A writing workshop rooted in the senses and memory
During CARIFESTA XV in Barbados, Opal Palmer Adisa led a workshop as part of the literary program “Conversation with the Poet Laureates” program.. This space was not simply a moment of theory, but an immediate application. She proposed prompt to get participants to write, here are a few examples:
– write “the taste of home”, in five lines, through smells, textures and colors;
– listen to the sea as a narrator, recounting migrations, suffering and healing;
This deeply sensory approach was designed to remind us that writing is not an abstraction: it is nourished by what is seen, smelled, tasted and heard on a daily basis.
The ancestors and the sea as guides
The workshop took on an almost ritualistic dimension when Opal Palmer Adisa invited everyone to invoke the names of their ancestors. She emphasizes that matrilineal and patrilineal heritage is a source of knowledge and stories that are often forgotten. From her perspective, writing is a way of renewing this thread, interrupted by colonial history.
The sea was the other main focus of her thinking. She asked participants to project themselves into it, to feel the water on their skin, the sand under their feet, the waves on their bodies. For her, the ocean is an open book, a repository of past dramas but also a space for healing. She evoked the Molinere Underwater Sculpture Park in Grenada, underlining the importance of inscribing memorial rituals linked to the sea in contemporary Caribbean culture.
Cultural diversity and the Creole language
The author reminded us that the Caribbean was born of the meeting of multiple heritages: Taïnos with manioc and bami, Africans with their languages and rhythms, Indians and Chinese with rice, spices and curries. In her view, this diversity is an immense source of richness, but one that remains too little integrated into collective representations.
Opal Palmer Adisa insists on the importance of writing in Creole languages. She asserts that these idioms are not mere dialects, but entire cosmologies, conveying a vision of the world. Using them in literature means resisting cultural erasure and rehabilitating knowledge.
An educational emergency
For the writer, this process must start at school. She deplores the fact that many Jamaican children don’t know the names of local birds, trees or plants, but retain imported references. She advocates writing workshops starting in primary school, so that children can learn to express their environment and build a sense of pride in their identity.
Towards Caribbean unity
Quoting Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados, Opal Palmer Adisa insisted on the need to go beyond national borders to think about a common identity. ” We have to be Caribbean “she repeats, like an invitation to write a shared history, free from stereotypes.
Rather than limiting itself to representing an island, a country or a territory, it calls for a collective horizon, where the Caribbean tells its story as a living, plural and united entity.
The intervention of Opal Palmer Adisa à CARIFESTA XV showed that writing about the Caribbean means summoning up the taste of food, the sound of waves, the voice of ancestors, the diversity of cultures and the strength of local languages. Her workshop reminded us that literature can be an act of resistance, a way of healing and connecting generations and territories.
Location: Golden Square Freedom Park, Bridgetown
Date: August 23, 2025, International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade
Event : Launch of “Big Conversations” at CARIFESTA XV
Panel theme: “The Idea of Caribbean Civilization”.
Moderator: Dr. Carla Barnett, CARICOM Secretary General
A moment of collective awareness
It was under the trees of Golden Square Freedom Park, the symbolic site of Barbadian labor struggles, that the first major panel debate of CARIFESTA XV opened. Entitled “The Idea of Caribbean Civilization”, this inaugural conversation brought together four of the Caribbean’s leading voices to address an essential question: Can we think of the Caribbean as a civilization in its own right?
This opening panel laid the foundations for what could be a Caribbean architecture of innovation, based on a shared memorial, cultural and political foundation. With this in mind, CARIFESTA XV becomes a space for collective reflection, where memory and the future come together.
Strong words, intersecting trajectories
Dr. Ralph Gonsalves Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, opened the discussion with a definition of civilization as a state of balance between the visible (infrastructures, systems) and invisible (values, behaviors, resistance) dimensions. For him, the Caribbean doesn’t need an empire to be a civilization: “There is a genius resident in our people, made up of hidden rationalities and under-exploited resources”.
Sir Hilary Beckles, Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, offered a powerful historical fresco in which Barbados emerges as a pivotal territory in the memory of slavery and the struggle for freedom. He recalled that Barbados was the first territory to develop the chattel slavery model, later exported throughout the hemisphere.
➡️ What is chattel slavery?
Derived from the English word chattel, this system considered slaves to be property in the same way as a horse or a house. According to the Barbados Slave Code of 1661, “all Africans arriving on the island shall be considered as chattels and real estate”. This legal regime made slavery a hereditary, racial and transmissible condition, where children were automatically born into slavery, used as currency, mortgage or inheritance. It was this model, initiated in Barbados, that later served as a reference for other British colonies, notably Jamaica and South Carolina.
Dr. June Soomer a diplomat and historian from Saint Lucia, anchored the debate in Caribbean mobilities, the contributions of women and diasporas. She called for a real decolonization of minds, reminding us that “we cannot build a Caribbean civilization by hierarchizing its peoples”.
Finally, Mia Amor Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados, delivered a masterful speech on the challenges of education, technology and governance on a Caribbean scale. She warned, “The new colonization won’t come by sea, it will enter our minds via digital platforms we don’t control.” She called for a common political and educational space to resist digital standardization.
She illustrated her point with a concrete example: the Barbados Slave Code of 1661. Querying several artificial intelligence platforms, including Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity and other online engines, she found that none could provide an answer, revealing an inability to access this crucial part of Caribbean history. For Mia Mottley, this digital erasure of Caribbean memory reveals a major danger: if our histories disappear from the archives accessible to new generations, then the colonization of minds is already underway. Against this backdrop, CARIFESTA XV takes on its full meaning as a platform for giving voice to forgotten memories.
A shared vision for the future
The panel ended with a shared vision: the Caribbean is already a civilization. Not by imitation, but by crossbreeding, struggle and solidarity. A civilization in the making, at the interface of the African, European, Amerindian, Indian and Asian worlds.
In a final sequence, each speaker was invited to share a final reflection.
Ralph Gonsalves emphasized that any sustainable civilization requires a solid material base and a cooperative institutional structure. He called for a “social individualism” based on solidarity and the sea as a new civilizational frontier.
June Soomer reiterated the importance of conceiving the Caribbean as a collective, rather than as a collection of isolated islands. In her view, the Caribbean will only be able to connect with Africa in the long term if it first consolidates its internal unity.
Hilary Beckles concluded with a powerful critique of the Slave Code of 1661 and a demand: “We, the descendants of this law, say no. We stand for humanity and equal rights . We stand for humanity and equal rights”.
Mia Mottley closed the march with a plea for “scale”: a civilization only lives if it reaches the masses. She called for artists, young people and creators to be mobilized as vectors of influence and transformation. ” In an age of narrowcasting, we need to change the way we reach people’s minds,” she said.
This inaugural panel of CARIFESTA XV reminded us of an essential truth: the Caribbean is not just an archipelago of past resistance, but a civilization on the move. A civilization that is inventing itself collectively, between memory, political courage and creative audacity. It’s up to us, the peoples of the Caribbean, to continue writing this history – together, and in our own way. With moments like CARIFESTA XV, it becomes clear that art, memory and critical thinking are the pillars of a true Caribbean civilization.
In the minds of the organizers, CARIFESTA XV is not just a festival, but a decisive step towards a renewed collective consciousness. By inscribing these debates in history, CARIFESTA XV positions itself as a major milestone in the construction of Caribbean identity and culture.
