Pebbles King grabs Avant Garde title as Reggae Meets Campari

In the usual Saint International and Campari style, the Jamaica Avant Garde Designer of the Year event, ‘The Red Glamour Celebration’, brought out the perfect mix of fashion industry executives and influencers to its finals held at the Courtleigh Auditorium last Friday.

The competition finals featured exciting and well-crafted pieces from nine designers, selected from an initial group of approximately 30 participants. In his opening speech, CEO of Saint International, Deiwght Peters, explained “The competition was created as a platform for designers to be as loud, spectacular and grand as they could be.”

In celebrating the brand Campari, which partnered with Saint as title sponsor five years ago, the designers were given the charge to create a design around the theme ‘Reggae Meets Campari’ to encapsulate the essence of the brand, as well as cultural elements.

In the end, only one designer could win the title. That designer was Pebbles King. Like a Campari mix, the concept of her design, titled ‘Hit Girl’, fused sheer fabrics, faux fur and pieces of glass, which depicted a beautiful flavour of fashion that was bittersweet.

As for the story behind the design, King said that during her research, she found a cocktail mix under the Campari brand with the name ‘Hit Girl’, and it fit the theme perfectly.

“Reggae is red, green and gold (or yellow), and thinking about the music, there are many hits, and that’s where the inspiration came from to actually create my piece,” King told The Gleaner.

She added, “Whenever I travel, the one thing I notice is people gravitate to our fashion, for both reggae and dancehall. It stands out in the streets.”

There were other pieces that could easily have taken the top prize in any avant-garde design competition or earned the cover of Vogue magazine. Among them were ‘Reggae Queen’ by Lucien Harrison; ‘Campari’s Legacy’ by Demoy Beckford; ‘Reggae Pari’ by Jilan Buchanan and ‘Fire Goddess Sekmet’ by Juven Dunn and the Guadaloupian sisters, Hannjah and Zinnijah.

Some of the designers revealed that their designs took more than a month to assemble, but, based on the judges’ decisions, those concepts did not fully embrace the spirit of the alcoholic liqueur.

Although in a state of euphoria following the announcement that she had won, the 2019 Jamaica Avant Garde Designer of the Year admitted that she was actually very confident that she had a 100 per cent chance of walking away with the prize. “The process did not take a long time for me, maybe less than a week. And, since I have been doing fashion over the years, a designer of my experience just knows when the design is ready for show.”

The grand prize was originally $50,000, but Alando Terrelonge, minister of state in the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information, impressed by the competition and the work put in by the designers, topped up the winnings with an additional $20,000. In the end, King walked away with a total of $70,000.

Spitting hits

The other ‘hit girl’ for the night, Jada Kingdom, known for her diverse styles and sounds, stole the spotlight for a few minutes as the judges deliberated on the winner. Jada Kingdom attempted to bring life to original singles Best You Ever Had, Love Situation, Banana and even did a few minutes of singalong to the Better Than That audio that features Govana.

The dancehall entertainer spit the hits that most members of the audience knew her for, and while individuals could be seen adding the moment to their social-media stories and singing along, it was obvious that passion was missing from the performance.