Claudia Pegus has been known as a Trinidadian haute couture fashion designer for the past 20 years. Ms Pegus, as all her employees call her, has chosen to celebrate reaching this milestone by starting out in another direction.
CPFS stands for Claudia Pegus Frederick Street. It joins several other stores in offering a line of totally local fashion for young people. Some may think that the store's name is a blatant take-off on American designer Donna Karan's line of street fashion, DKNY, but Pegus wasn't just trying to keep up with her big-city designer peers. There is a reason behind the name.
"My entire career as a designer in Trinidad was on Frederick Street. So now that I'm in my 20th year in this business I felt that I could do something new, but I wanted a street image for this new look.
"I remember, when I was small, Frederick Street was the formal street. People went there to shop for the best things. There were stores like Glendinnings; Miller's …places like that. Frederick Street in Port of Spain was like Fifth Avenue in New York.
"But then the Street started going under. And then the malls came in and it was no longer the prime street to shop. Now it's coming back; you can find anything from fine jewelry to casual clothes there. I just wanted the store to depict how the street has changed over time…I wanted everyone to see how I have changed over the years."
Claudia Pegus was born 40-something years ago in Palo Seco, South Trinidad, where she lived for only five years. She left Trinidad for Europe in 1983, where she worked with some old tailors in Barcelona, Spain, learning how to craft everything by hand using the traditional methods. From there, Pegus travelled throughout the rest of Spain, Switzerland, France and eventually to Cologne, Germany, where she has a house and small studio.
With CPFS, Pegus is also revisiting what was her best economic period, the early Eighties, when she had an outlet in Roundabout Plaza in Barataria.
"That store had my highest turnover. It stocked strictly casual ready-to-wear clothes that were geared to a younger, more budget-oriented clientele. With CPFS, I'm using that idea, together with the experience that I've gained over the years and what I've learned now from watching young people on the street."
Staying true to that basic philosophy, Pegus is not only offering clothes in the finely tailored, feminine look that she is known for. "This store is younger, more streetish. There are some fine things in there still, but there are some rugged looks and some casual clothes too. But it's still sophisticated. The people who want the finer things will come up here." (Her Level 2, Colsort Mall boutique that has been a kind of landmark since it opened in 1989).
The economic situation facing downtown retailers and the increase in foot traffic on the street level of Colsort Mall meant that Pegus had to open another store. But it made no sense to have another outlet that offered the same expensive couture fashion that she sells in her upstairs boutique. The time seemed right, so she went downstairs. On August 15 of this year, CPFS opened, without much fanfare.
"I had to be able to compete with everyone else on the street. The average downtown shopper doesn't want to pay $1,500 and up for a dress. They are looking for something from $200 down."
Aside from her rivals in the local fashion industry, CPFS will also place Pegus in competition with the international brand names that have become synonymous with popular youth culture. Pegus has joined the global trend in the fashion industry to offer clothes that appeal tot he aesthetic of the youth on the street. So instead of her trademark fine linen and silk brocade gowns she's selling clingy Lycra dresses and separates in easier, daily-wear fabrics.
Pegus also emphasizes, "What our local designers produce stands up to anything any other manufacturer can offer."
Apart from the absent tantana and bacchanal, opening CPFS was a different experience from opening her first boutique because of something else. The odour of litter and decay wasn't the only depressing thing about downtown Port of Spain in the mid-Seventies. In those days, Trinidad had some problems that many people fought dearly to change. In the Nineties, some of us take it for granted that those problems were solved.
"At that time, a woman having her own business was a rare thing. But in addition to being a young woman, I was also black. The banks wouldn't listen to me, and I knew I had to get a white face to put in front of me. I went to get the loan with my white sister-in-law and that's how I got the money to start this business."
It is a lot easier for a young designer to get into business now. Lending agencies like the Small Business Development Company (SBDC) and Fund-Aid make the whole process of getting start-up capital accessible and less demeaning to young businessmen and women.
CPFS joins Z Meiling and Radical Designs in attempting to market designer high fashion to young buyers. Only time will tell if youth will bite, choosing local brands over foreign ones.
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