‘Birthed out of pain’
Christian designer shares her testimony with Bloom in Astacia
Published:Friday | March 15, 2024 | 12:06 AMShanel Lemmie/Staff Reporter
Jinelle Hylton has always had a love for fashion. Born and raised in the capital city, to a Christian family, The University of the West Indies graduate never thought much of her design eye.
“I love clothes, I love putting things together, I love contrasting, I love mixing and matching, I love clashing, so it was just always a passion for me. And you know when you can just do something naturally, you nuh affi think too tuff, you just do it,” she told Lifestyle.
But during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Hylton felt the need to diversify her income, her talent was called upon to not only bring in more money but to bring her healing.
“Bloom in Astacia was really birthed out of pain.” Breathing deeply she continued, “I was in a relationship for about three-plus years and it just so happens that I found out that the young man was married and I did not know.”
With her whole life as she knew it changing before her eyes, she recalled that July, “I was so broken and it was at that breaking point that the Lord said to start the clothing line, and when I started the clothing line it took up my time. It gave me something to hope for, it gave me something to look forward to. Because I turned all of my brokenness and everything that I had and everything God inspired me to do into my designs.”
In August 2022, the faith-based clothing line, Bloom in Astacia, was launched on Hylton’s birthday.
“If you look carefully, you’ll see that every single design that I have has a scripture attached to it, because they’re scripture-based and whenever it is that the Lord is giving me a design, it’s because of real-life situations that I do go through that inspires every single one of my designs,” she explained.
With pieces titled ‘Faith’, ‘Joy’, ‘Forgiveness’, ‘Grace’ and ‘Love’, each article of clothing reflected what she was working through in her life. Mimicking the multiplicity of her emotions, she said she added many layers to each piece.
“When everything went down I think I launched about five pieces, they were ‘Faith’, ‘Joy’, ‘Forgiveness’, ‘Grace’ and ‘Love’. The Lord was basically showing me that in this time, in my broken state, that with each of the designs that he gave me, I needed grace to walk the road that I was taking on now, being alone, being hurt. I needed forgiveness in order to move on and I needed to forgive him for what he did and everything being a lie.”
Initially filled with the neutral colours that were typical of her own personal style, Hylton explained the more she healed, the more vibrant her pieces became.
“When I saw that ‘Favor’ took off and the healing moved from the hurt, to just really being whole, the colours came alive,” she marvelled.
Culminating in her latest body of work, The Testimony Collection, Hylton said her newfound state of mind is due solely to being held in the bosom of her God.
“For the testimony collection that I launched last year March, you’ll see lots of colours. Boldness is one, it’s kind of like an African excitement, another one is like a fusion of creme and jeans. So the Lord really had opened up my eyes to realise that now that I have shifted from the pain and the hurt that I had been feeling, there is a difference now that he needs me to experience and it really did show in my designs.”
Although not all of her pieces have been released to the public, Hylton emphasises that her primary focus is on sharing her testimony and lifting the veil that binds her community in pain.
Tearfully, she said, “Nothing that is concealed will be healed. It has to be exposed and once it’s exposed, it is open to light. Before it was always in darkness and that’s why you can always get away with it; but once you put it in the light and you allow persons to know that this is what it is, you might never know who else is struggling with that same thing and who needs help just as you did.”