LargeUp Interview: Anya Ayoung-Chee on cANYAval

Interview by Kendra Dennis/Photos by Jonathan Mannion

This past Thursday night, we kicked off New York City Fashion Week with Trinidadian designer Anya Ayoung-Chee. It had been three years—Fashion Week 2011, to be exact—since we sat down with Anya for a two-part conversation about her life as a Trini beauty queen turned fashion designer and reality show contestant, and a lot has changed for her since then. She won the season of Project Runway she was starring in at the time (a moment we celebrated with her), and has become one of the first names in Caribbean fashion. Last year Anya launched The cANYAval Shop, an online store store featuring Carnival attire from herself as well as other Trini and Caribbean designers, with an emphasis on so-called Monday Wear: embellished, high-end bathing suits worn at Trinidad Carnival ahead of the traditional masquerade costumes donned on Carnival Tuesday.

Several months after a New York launch event at Milk Studios in June (that served as the backdrop for Kes the Band’s”Endless Summer” video), Anya and fellow cANYAval designers Delia Alleyne and Keisha Als returned to NYC for a brand showcase and Fashion Week kick-off party at Miss Lily’s. Kendra Dennis sat down with Anya to get the story behind cANYAval and the designer’s plans to grow carnival-inspired Caribbean fashion into a worldwide phenomenon.

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LU: Tell us a little bit about what you’re doing here at Miss Lily’s for Fashion Week.

AAC: We are doing a wrap up of the summer/opening of Fashion Week, using the cANYAval brand, as my sort of continuous launch of what it is to represent Trinidad and the Caribbean, in New York. With cANYAval, we’re basically promoting Caribbean fashion as a form of expression and, as I said to somebody just now, “holding hands, and moving forward.” The idea is really to take talents that are either born in the Caribbean — Trinidad, Jamaica, Barbados, wherever it’s coming from — or inspired by the Caribbean, and allow it to grow into a global space. Winning Project Runway helped me to get to a certain level, where people were recognizing what I was doing, and I found that I couldn’t really do that alone. Not in good conscious, yuh know. I felt like it would be really beneficial to use the moment, and take it beyond me. ‘Cause I’m very proud of being Trini…

LU: Yes! You waved the flag when you won.
AAC: [Laughs] On LargeUp, that’s a classic, classic shot. It’s just about continuing to do that; but in a real way, where its commerce, and it’s coming back to people’s livelihoods, yuh know. I think its all well and good to do it from some point of altruism, cultural capitol, and thats great—thats always happening! The Caribbean is so seductive, its so magnetic, everyone wants a part of it. But I want to see people start to make money. I wanna see these designers that I’m bringing to be able to make careers out of it, and not have to have a little side job. I’d like to see them do it for real, like I got to do it for real, and I guess, thats what really inspired me. I didn’t think being a designer was a real job—but it actually is.

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LU: Talk about some of your new pieces that are on display right now.
AAC: Basically cANYAval is a group of collaborations and it’s always growing, and it ranges from swimwear to t-shirts, to contemporary women’s-wear, accessories—the whole nine. One of the new contemporary women’s designers is Delia Alleyne, she’s from Tobago. She taught me how to sew for Project Runway, and she recently graduated from The Caribbean Academy of Fashion Design, which is the only university of fashion design in the Caribbean. She’s very good at construction, and I really wanted to bring her on, yuh know, so we collaborated on a few things that were my aesthetic and hers, and [its] great to see her here in New York.

LU: Tell me a little about your experience with Fashion Week.

AAC: Fashion Week is very established, obviously. It’s gotten to a point where it’s really benefiting from fresher perspectives on how it can work, and I’ve found that doing things that are, in some way, “off the runway.” It draws more attention, it’s more organic. We did an event in June with Miss Lilys and Red Bull at Milk Studios, and it was exactly that. Jonathan Mannion, who is an amazing photographer, shot the line in Milk Studios in the party, Kes performed, Jillionaire was on the decks. We had Moko Jumbies, and steel pan all happening at once. It was a fresh introduction to a fashion brand that didn’t feel contrived. So that’s my vision for cANYAval. I wanna take that same kind of guerrilla type event all around the world, where there’s already a draw to the Caribbean, and use the events-based model to introduce the brand and sell the clothes.

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LU: It’s a great strategy. It doesn’t feel like you’re selling anything; it just feels like you’re celebrating.

AAC: I also decided to veer away from the seasons, because I come from a warm place, and we dress one way—all the time. Whether it’s some combination of contemporary womenswear mixed with swimwear, mixed with resort, like its all mixed up. For a while I battled with fitting in to autumn, winter; spring, summer, resort, holiday like all the millions of rigid rules that occupied [the] fashion space. I could be completely wrong, and it may not work, but I believe if I stay true to what feels right to me, it’ll make sense in the long run. Ideally, I want to feature warm-weather clothes all the time—service the Northern Hemisphere when its warm, and the Southern Hemisphere when its warm, and just really be a global brand for “warm-wear.”

LU: Talk a little bit about the upcoming Carnival Season for 2015.

AAC: cANYAval is not only a fashion entity, it’s also covering mas on the road, in Trinidad, [the] second largest carnival in the world. The best one, as far as I’m concerned. [laughs]. I design for Tribe, which is the biggest [masquerade] band in the country in Trinidad, and it’s the fourth year going on. I also do an event called cANYAval, which is on the Saturday before carnival. It benefits my charity, which is the Tallman Foundation, an arts education foundation. I wanted to establish myself strongly in Trinidad, and there’s no better way than having a section in carnival, and having a fete.

LU: Caribbean culture is definitely taking over globally; LargeUp just covered carnival in Scandinavia!

AAC: Yes, Berlin has one, Johannesburg has one, Hong Kong—and that’s why I believe in cANYAval. I believe that it’s a global market. I really think that even my brand, Anya and Pilar, my actual clothing line, have much more of a chance of going global, via the authenticity of my culture. I really believe that.

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LU: Talk about Carnival Monday, and Monday Wear…

AAC: Monday Wear is a cross between swim[wear] and [an] over-embellished version of Carnival [wear]. It’s generally swimwear that’s super done up. Carnival has been such a spectacle of individuality, and it’s an opportunity to say, “This is who I am; This is how I express myself, and I don’t wanna look like anyone else.” Carnival costumes, as expensive as they continue to get, are worn mainly on Tuesday—headpiece, leg piece, feathers. So Monday has become this open space for designers to do these kind of slightly less embellished, less expensive, but still more elaborate versions of swimwear, and that’s what Monday Wear is.

cANYAval really began as an opportunity to showcase Monday Wear, for girls who wanted to be one level up from the rest. That’s what Keisha Als, one of our designers, that’s featured today, does. It translates into real swimwear or if you’re going to some Hamptons-fabulous event. We try to take the super embellished version, and make it as palatable for the non-carnival user as possible. Because we still want this to go bigger than carnival. cANYAval began online last November, with cANYAvalshop.com as a portal for everything you need for carnival, except your costume. As it grew—it’s been less than a year— we realized that it has so much more scope than that. Its really evolved into a Caribbean brand, and I’m really happy about that.

LU: Since you are a veteran in playing mas, what are the three things every woman must have if she’s playing mas?

AAC: A really great pair of boots is so key. It used to be sneakers but it’s not anymore. I would say, a really good tan—whether its real or fake, and a good piece of Monday Wear. And number one is confidence.