Author, fashion designer Lusta Rose Neita dies at 75
Published:Monday | March 7, 2022 | 12:08 AM
Remembered for her 1990s book, Jonah, author Lusta Rose Neita and fashion designer recently passed away peacefully at her home in Discovery Bay, St Ann, after ailing for some time.
Lusta Rose, who was wife of author and public relations consultant Lance Neita, was 75. She died in January and her funeral was held late February.
During the 1990s, she operated Select Enterprise, a clothing and fashion-designing business in Discovery Bay that employed up to 20 persons during its operation.
In 1996, Lusta Rose won first place in a JCDC festival fashion-designing competition with a dress that she designed and built.
Her passion for fashion designing would have been inspired by her late mother, Lucille Higgins, a dressmaker who was well known in Kingston.
Higgins operated a dressmaking facility in Cross Roads several decades ago and would have facilitated Lusta Rose honing her skills there before branching out to St Ann.
“She grew up with that kind of thing and she loved it,” Lance told The Gleaner.
Lusta Rose was also one of the first Jamaicans to be trained overseas in food management, receiving a diploma in food management and banquet management from the Culinary Institute of America, affording her the opportunity to open her own catering business.
One very important piece of her lasting legacy, however, would be the book Jonah, for which Discovery Bay artist Margaret McNeish was commissioned to do illustrations. The book contains 14 full pages of illustrations by the artist.