By ALESHA CADET
Tribune Features Reporter
acadet@tribunemedia.net
A YOUNG CALIFORNIA fashion and design student is exploring her Bahamian roots, weaving together the threads of two different worlds. Her new designer collection “Smithy and Primary” is the product of her exploration. Although Jasmine Smith was born and raised in Miami, Florida, she never lost touch with her mother’s Androsian roots.
“Having never visited the Bahamas, I have always been reliant upon stories and photographs as inspiration to my designs. Smithy and Primary represents a convergence of the energetic palette from my mother Cypriann Smith’s ancestral Androsian home. ‘Smithy’ signifies my love of the well-made, and is inspired by my generational roots of makers. ‘Primary’ corresponds to the inhibitor. My mother having immigrated to the Americas from Andros in the 80’s, she marked the bar for a standard of which I live by, limitless,” Jasmine told Tribune Woman.
She said the collection, Smithy and Primary, is dedicated to weaving together these themes through silhouettes embodying a 90s minimal aesthetic. It is designed ideally for the around the clock woman, with boundless strides of confidence.
Currently studying Fashion and Design at the California College of the Arts, Jasmine said she is hoping to complete her studies in the spring of 2014.
“I’ve always had an interest in fashion. It travels back to about the age of six when I recall my sisters and I orchestrating a catwalk down the hallway of our childhood home in Miami as my mother would cheer us along. My passion to enter the field truly ignited in the ninth grade when I enrolled in my first fashion business course at Everglades High School. Through this class I acquired the knowledge of learning how to pursue a career in this field and the business mechanisms needed to thrive in it as well,” said Jasmine.
The fashionista said she is also working towards being the director of her very own design company. This has always been the over arching goal since her first fashion class.
“Fashion design is a platform for me to portray the inner most truth I feel amongst myself. Through this truth, I design collections where people are able to relate through the conceptual narrative and silhouette of the garments. The benefit of being a fashion designer is that you have the platform to orchestrate a standard of which other designers translate into their own,” said Jasmine.
For Jasmine, the most beneficial exposure she received in the fashion and design field was through a fashion designer residency programme for an art gallery, Betti Ono, in California.
Through this experience Jasmine designed full head-to-toe looks that Betti Ono wore to the gallery openings of each show for a period of four months.
“From this opportunity, I was able to take away how important it is for me to observe the interaction transmitted from designer to wearer to view and critique by the overall public. This primary data is a key aspect of my design process,” said Jasmine.
Jasmine recalls her teenage years, sitting on the floor of her bedroom cutting fabric that would then be made into a garment.
“I would work amongst myself for hours until I was able to have it completed. The moments of which I’m at one with myself is when I’m in the studio making, creating and critiquing among my design peers. The design process comes natural to me due to the years of acquired patience and learning. It is one that can be tenuous, but I would not trade this profession for any other in the world,” said Jasmine.
She said the two most influential people in her life would have to be her mother Cypriann and father Elvis Smith.
Her mother taught her the importance of patience, persistence and the need for whatever she create to be well-crafted. While her father taught her the importance of hard work and dedication. Overall, Jasmine said both of her parents have instilled in her the skills needed to take on an industry that can be overly truthful and extremely opinionated.
“I have spent the last three years in California. As I’m currently in the process of funding my collection, and seeking investors to provide a backing to my over arching goal, where I will relocate myself is currently undecided,” said Jasmine.
She currently has a fund raising initiative on the crowd source funding website IndieGogo.
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