'TRINI" TWIST
TO OSCAR DRESS
By Gillian Moore
Express
April 13, 2000
Page 42
If the green and gold gown Eryka Badu wore to this year's Academy
Awards looked good enough to eat, it was no accident.
The
woman who designed the delectable dress spends most of her days cooking in the
cafeteria of Mucurapo Girls' RC School.
So
how did primary school lunch-lady Jacqueline Guy Sheppard go from serving up
fried chicken to fierce fashion?
In
a way, she started on this path decades ago.
Growing up in Sangre Grande, where she attended Dasent College, Sheppard
found an outlet in her power to create.
In
a home setting where she "got plenty love" she learned sewing,
crotchet, arts and craft, and of course, cooking.
Her
culinary capabilities led her to the kitchen of St Dominic's Home in Belmont,
where she made the children's meals for 25 years.
The
affection her parents showered on her was surely formative - the proud
pensioner no less than radiates joy.
She says she loves children, and the little ones who came to the back
door of the cafeteria for stewed tamarind treats - one girl always greets her
"Hi Sheppy" - knew they were in friendly territory. In raising her own children Charlene and
André (both now adults), Sheppard let love be her guiding principle: "With
children, you have to love them up."
And the successes her children have achieved makes her sure her theory
is correct.
While
son André works with computers and is very involved in his church, daughter
Charlene works as American R&B singer Eryka Badu's personal stylist.
She
makes all the jewelry the star singer wears, and is the creative force behind
her signature funky, ethnic style.
The
two met in Brooklyn where "rootsy" Charlene was putting on a show to
feature her original fashions, and asked Badu to model. Badu agreed, and fell so much in love with
Charlene's fashion sense that she asked her to work with her.
Badu's
Oscar gown was made from over 200 squares of kid leather, which were
individually bordered with crocheted yellow raffia and sewn together.
And
what was it like for Sheppard to see her labour of love live on TV at the Oscars? "It was no big thing while I was
watching it," she recalls, but afterwards the thrill sank in.
"What
I love about her is she's so enterprising," Sheppard says of her daughter,
with a sense of pride impossible to hide.
But
there can be no doubt where Charlene gets her creativity and her drive.
Mother
and daughter sustain a collaborative working relationship, Charlene designing
clothes from the yards of hand painted fabric her mother sends overseas.
"I
made a crochet bag and she sold it for US $800!"
What
mother wouldn't be proud?